Ecover has relaunched its eco-friendly surface cleaning range with a more powerful natural ingredient that it claims will make it as effective as petrochemical-based brands such as Cillit Bang and Mr Muscle.

The ecological cleaning brand said it had spent the past seven years developing "pioneering" new eco-surfactants that would boost the cleaning power of its products, and had been made through a greener manufacturing process than before.

As part of the revamp, Ecover has added two new products containing the new eco-surfactants to its surface-cleaning range.

It described new kitchen degreaser Ecover Power Cleaner (rsp: £3.99) as "more effective than Cillit Bang Cleanser Degreaser", and Window & Glass Cleaner (rsp: £2.69) as just "as effective" as Mr Muscle Window Cleaner.

The new products will be available in Waitrose and independent health food stores from this week.

The two existing surface cleaners in the range have been reformulated and renamed to "better communicate their functions", said Clare Allman, marketing manager. Liquid variant Ecover Multi Surface Cleaner has been renamed Ecover All Purpose Cleaner (£1.59), and spray variant SquirtEco has become Ecover Multi Surface Cleaner (rsp: £2.84).

Both products were initially introduced to selected multiples and independent health stores in April but are rolling out across the mults from this week.

"The new range has half the CO2 compared with before as the ingredients are sourced in Europe, closer to our ecological factories," said Allman.