Sustainable furniture brand Sabai’s co-founder, Phantila Phataraprasit, shares 4 eco-minded essentials she counts on at home

“I really love the Trader Joe’s pop-up sponges,” Phataraprasit says. “I actually haven’t been using them for that long. I discovered them earlier this year, and I just really loved them. I like how soft they are. I don’t know how to describe it for a dish sponge, but it’s very squishy in a way that is very satisfying. It feels really nice in your hand. It’s thicker than most dish sponges I’ve seen before, so it feels substantial in your hand. It’s the perfect size to hold.”

When you’re facing a sink full of dishes, that tactile stress relief might just come in handy. Besides, according to Phataraprasit, ushering a new sponge into use might almost make you excited for cleaning day. 

“They come flattened. You wouldn’t believe how small they are when you take them out of the packet,” she says. “When you put water on one, it expands into the size of the full sponge. I think there are around 12 in a pack, and it’s great.” 

Though the sponge works well for lighter cleaning jobs, Phataraprasit says it’s not made for baked-on bits. 

“They’re made from vegetable cellulose,” she says. “It’s not your hardcore scrubber. For scrubbing, I use steel wool to get stuff off, but this is for easy cleaning. You can use it for tables as well to wipe things down.

“It really serves its purpose for me. I wouldn’t expect it to be an everything sponge. But for what it is, it’s great.”

To pair with her sustainable sponge, Phataraprasit reaches for Attitude’s 97%-naturally-derived dish soap. 

“It works really well,” she says, adding it’s a dish soap she “really loves.” Not only is it made from “really clean ingredients,” but it’s EWG Verified.

“They come in a few different scents — I like the Citrus Zest,” she says. And it’s super-easy for her to top up on her favorite fragrance: The brand also offers a refill option designed with sustainability in mind. Even if it’s not totally plastic-free, “they really try to minimize the amount of plastic used,” says Phataraprasit.

“This is something that I’ve been using for a few years now,” Phataraprasit says. “I think shower filters have gotten really popular, and it’s basically accounting for the fact that there are a lot of forever chemicals or different toxins in our water.” 

For anyone skittish around DIY, this filter is super-easy to install. “It’s really no-frills,” she says. “It’s not necessarily the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, but you attach it to your shower and then attach your showerhead onto it. It goes between your showerhead and the pipe coming out of your shower. It’s really easy to replace the filters and really easy to install.”

Once she had it up and running, she started seeing and feeling the benefits. 

“My hair was feeling better,” she says. “There was less buildup on my scalp, I would say, and my skin was feeling better as well. Obviously, when you replace the filter and see all the stuff that it’s filtering out, that’s definitely a convincing moment as well. It’s pretty affordable, and it really does the job for me.”

Finding a reliable glass blender turned out to be harder than Phataraprasit, who was hoping to avoid plastic pitchers, initially thought. 

“Most blenders are made of plastic, and then there are a few stainless-steel ones out there that are just really expensive,” she says. “This is a glass blender, which I found really difficult to find.” 

It’s become a go-to appliance for her. “I use it for everything from smoothies to soups to sauces. It’s quite powerful, so it can handle a lot of things. It’s pretty standard, I would say, in terms of the functionality, but it works totally great. It’s strong, durable and, most importantly, glass.”

While the features aren’t necessarily groundbreaking, what matters to Phataraprasit is that it delivers consistent performance.“It’s a more traditional blender where you’re just putting everything in and then putting the top on, versus the NutriBullet and the wave of blenders where you put the top on and then flip them.”

Even better? It’s dishwasher-safe, even if you can’t remove the blades: “I put this one in the dishwasher as a whole piece, and that’s really easy.”