Oh, Lucky Earth

Leave it to me to attend a free expo and, like a moth to a flame immediately hone in on the only exhibitor in attendance with a product for sale. I can’t help it, I like to buy things.

In this case I joined a small group which had gathered at the AltCar Expo in Santa Monica to watch Dan Fiers demonstrate how to use Lucky Earth Waterless Car Wash. Like Scooby Doo on a hot lead, my ears perked right up. Pasadena is facing a serious water shortage, and even though the City Council has recently rejected fining water wasters, there’s little doubt that mandatory water usage cutbacks will be implemented sooner rather than later. 

The cuts are certainly warranted as our water supply appears on track to go belly up — just like our 401(k)’s — if we don’t start conserving. All the same, in our So Cal car culture, where cleanliness is next only to Godliness, imagine how our images will suffer if we’re all driving filthy cars because we have no water to wash them. But seriously, waterless car wash? Spare me. 

Dan picked up a Hershey bar and smeared the soft chocolate on the window, and then directly on the paint of the Lucky Earth Demo car. I narrowed my eyes in my best “I’ll believe it when I see it” glare and waited for the BS to begin. 

He then sprayed a micro-fiber towel (required) with a bit of the waterless car wash, sprayed a mist on the chocolate smears, rubbed away the chocolate, and then wiped the formerly goopy areas clean with a second dry micro-fiber towel. Poof! The chocolate was gone, and the car was clean.

I had to have it. As if it weren’t humiliating enough that I’d had to park my big old V-6 amongst the masses of Priuses, EVs and other eco-friendly, fuel-efficient cars at the expo, my X-Terra was fully encrusted in dirt and peppered with no less than a dozen individual bird poop polka dots. While I doubted that Lucky Earth would be any match for the dirt mobile I was driving, I figured it certainly couldn’t make it look any worse. I bought a 32-ounce bottle on the spot for $16.99.

Before I tested Lucky Earth for myself, I gave CEO Lisa Peri a jingle. After she explained how she came up with the idea for the waterless carwash, (her daughter was diagnosed with multi-chemical sensitivity disorder, causing her to have allergic reactions to chemicals), then sheepishly admitted that she used to consider the whole green movement “a big marketing ploy,” I deemed Lisa a woman after my own doubtful heart. I admit that it didn’t hurt that she praised Pasadenans as “very forward thinking” when I asked how sales were going at Whole Foods in Pasadena. Apparently, Lucky Earth has sold quite well at the two stores since its debut in February. 

After 20 minutes of talking with Lisa, I was feeling even better about buying Lucky Earth. It’s hypo-allergenic, environmentally safe, prevents toxic run-off and eliminates water waste (a typical car wash uses between 20 and 45 gallons, while those who wash at home waste up to 140 gallons).

But I still doubted it could clean my hot mess of a car.

To my complete surprise, in 31 minutes flat, the X-Terra was cleaner than it’d been in months, windows and all. In another seven minutes I’d cleaned the interior of my car, including the sticky cup-holders. Staring at my shiny car, I now had to come clean and admit that the waterless car wash was easy to use and worked like a charm. 

Plus, I probably had a good five washes left in the bottle. (I should have had six to nine washes left, since Lisa said I’d get seven to 10 uses for my truck, but I used it a little liberally at first.) Still, if it costs (on the low end) $12 for me to get my car washed, five washes would cost $60. And being that I’m pretty inefficient at washing my own car, in five washes I’d have easily wasted (on the low end again) 500 gallons of water.  These days, I can’t afford to waste money, and certainly none of us can afford to waste water.

I know that even if we weren’t facing a looming water crisis and in the midst of an economic crisis, I’d still have bought Lucky Earth because buying things makes me feel good. But in this case, the initial product purchase was just an impulse buy. Now I’m officially sold on it.

Contact Jennifer Hadley at jmhadley624@yahoo.com.