As I’m sure you are aware, cleaning products don’t have the best record on the environmental scale. This started, many years ago now, a lucrative “green industry” of cleaning products. Lots of people talk about green cleaning, Oprah, the EPA and the Organic Consumers Association to name a few. This surely is a step in the right direction, and will continue to make a beneficial impact on the environment and consumers alike.
To me, however, this begs the question of how did people clean before all these toxic chemicals were introduced? I’ve come to the conclusion that a great amount of your cleaning can be achieved with not much more than three ingredients.
They are:
- Liquid Soap, I use Dr. Bronner’s castile soap, but feel free to use any vegetable oil or glycerin types as well. The soap dissolves oils that hold “dirt” and object together.
- Baking Soda, works as a mild abrasive that won’t scratch your fine china. Also it is known for it’s odor absorbing capabilities.
- Distilled White Vinegar, a wiz in the cleaning world, is a great solvent, helps remove rust from metals, is anti bacterial, slows microbial activity and diminishes many unruly odors. This is just to name a few of it’s cleaning qualities. Also, it works great to clean up any soap or baking soda residue form your cleaning experiments…
My go to recipe is:
- 1/2 cup liquid soap
- 2 cups baking soda
- 2 tbsp vinegar
- 1 cup warm water
Mix the liquid soap and baking soda in a bowl, add the water and mix again.
Introduce the vinegar last, as this will create a bit of a “foam” and will tend to make it harder to mix in.
The final mixture should be put into a plastic squirt bottle with a largish size hole.
It will have a tendency to clump up and or separate a bit if not used for a while. Just shake back into a somewhat pasty consistency and add water if needed.
You might want to add essential oils to add attributes. For instance tea tree oil is know to have antiviral,[7] antibacterial, antifungal, and antiseptic qualities. Also oils in the mint family have the benefit of repelling ants, and it smells refreshing!
Now go and play with this and tell me how it went.