Renewable Farming

WakeUP Summer: The powerful crop surfactant that’s safe in your kitchen

Among the thousand or so surfactant formulations sold to enhance the performance of foliar nutrients and herbicides, we’ve found only one technology that’s safe enough to use as a kitchen or bathroom cleanser. The “colloidal micelle” principle used in WakeUP Summer and WakeUP Spring.

We’ve seen about five versions of the colloidal micelle formulation sold around the world. We’ve tested all the ones we’ve come across. So far, none of them quite match WakeUP’s ability to cut water surface tension, carry nutrients into leaves, and continue to speed those nutrients through the crop’s phloem circulation system. 

And — WakeUP Summer is also the best household cleanser we’ve found, even though retail shelves are loaded with competing liquid ‘soaps.’ We’ll acknowledge we had some inspiration when our manufacturing team refined the current formulation. That came from a really professional manufacturer of cleansers in Arizona, Gemtek Products, which has been “Safely Cleaning Planet Earth” for 20 years. We simply zeroed in on crops, rather than cleanser applications. 

 

We’ve never been able to freeze WakeUP.  The photo above shows WakeUP as a free-flowing liquid at 10 below zero F.

Even though we hardly ever mention WakeUP’s cleansing capability except for cleaning field sprayers, farmers and their wives are using it in their kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms and power washers. We asked Renewable Farming’s Jill Carlson for a summary of how she uses WakeUP Summer around the house.  “Grammie” comments: 

I wasn’t trying to save money. I just wanted a cleaner that didn’t put me in a coma. I was tired of hand soaps that made me smell like a service station restroom, or dish detergents whose “fresh scent” is really a subteruge for a gas attack. I scoured the neighborhood stores and internet for something that really was fresh.

I was spurred by reports that the “new” perfumes are mostly petro-chemicals— none of them friendly. Some are even hormone disrupters.

So I kept looking. 

And all the time it was available in our son’s manufacturing plant: It’s WakeUP Summer.

Once I began trying WakeUP in the house, its uses multiplied like mayflies.

And I saved money. Lots of it. I filled a hand spray bottle with 1/2 teaspoon of WakeUP Summer and one quart water and washed all the windows upstairs. Electricity to pump a quart of water probably cost more than the WakeUP in that spray bottle.  

I had a little left and spritzed my houseplants. If it boosts soybeans, corn, wheat and sorghum — why not philodendron and fern? Now the UPS delivery man can see through my windows and notice the blooms on my geraniums. It’s a win-win.

I learned a lesson before I filled the container, though. Now I make sure the sprayer is clean. WakeUP likes to pull the tiny film of leftover junk out of bottles, sprayer tanks, hoses — we have a few farmer’s stories to share from learning experiences since 2008.

Next I filled the kitchen hand-soap dispenser with pure WakeUP Summer. One little squirt on the hands, or in a greasy pot, — and immediately — fresh and clean, no scent. 

Next — we filled every liquid soap dispenser in the house. And all of the “Why not?” scenarios began to surface: Why not dab some on a cut before applying a bandaid? Why not clean the fireplace glass? Why not remove bathtub film? Why not clean toilets?

Dozer, our shaggy Golden Retriever, was next. WakeUP and water lathered his coat wonderfully. After rinsing, his coat gleamed. The hair fluffed magnificently without smelling like a hot-house gardenia. Plus he stayed clean longer. Our grandson Justus bathes his goats with WakeUP for showing at the state fair (He won a championship ribbon for best of class).

In fact all of our grandkids like it. One of them asked his school if he could put his own WakeUP dispenser in the school restroom so he wouldn’t have to use the commercial “red stuff” which irritated his hands. The other elementary school kids quickly used it up. A church visitor asked if we had any soaps without perfume, as she was allergic to chemical fragrances. In our church restrooms and kitchen, now, sit our little Wakeup dispensers.

But the best use in our house is for cleaning fruits and vegetables. A five-minute soak in Wakeup water (6 squirts in a full sink) cleans 20 pounds of carrots. We just drain and fill again with rinsewater, then plug in the juicer for a bonanza of healthy drinks. After all, WakeUP is made with food-grade ingredients from botanical sources.

Wakeup works wonders in the laundry to remove that “sitting in the washer too long” smell — we just add a little to the regular detergent.

We have WakeUP pump bottles and spray bottles everywhere. We clean counters, outdoor furniture, carpets, cars, trucks….. And naturally we’ve always used WakeUP in the garden; that’s where we first saw its potential for accelerating crop growth. Daughter in law Jeanene pairs WakeUP with foliars for spectacular results. A word of caution: Don’t use it if you can’t handle a truckload of green beans.  Our supplier of farm-fresh eggs uses a 1:50 ratio of WakeUP Summer and water to clean eggs for sale. “It leaves a pleasant patina on the eggshells,” she says.

Personal hygiene is another area. I carry a vial of WakeUP Summer in my purse. If you begin to get a little too sweaty and “fragrant,” just dab a little on a wet towel and apply. Odor gone. Freshness….ah-h-h… true freshness. 

We also keep a hand-pump spray bottle in each bathroom, with a 1:50 ratio of WakeUP Summer to water, for cleaning bathroom surfaces. 

Enjoy your WakeUP. And please let me know how much fun you’re having with it.  Jill@renewablefarming.com