I am always amazed when I glimpse the bleaches, sprays and cleaners cluttering people’s homes. All sorts of unnecessary toxic ingredients line the shelves and get smeared on shower recesses (and later your skin) Not to mention inhaled. We are exposed to so many chemicals unknowingly in our day to day lives, choosing to bring them into our homes is something we just don’t need to do.
There are really only two ingredients – maybe three – you need to clean your house from top to toe.
Vinegar, bicarbonate soda and tea tree (or eucalyptus) oil. And if you have a set of microfibre cleaning cloths you may not even need those!
- Vinegar diluted in a spray bottle makes a great window cleaner – use scrunched up newspapers as the cleaning cloth.
- Bicarb can be mixed with a little water to form a paste and used to clean sinks and surfaces and even ovens.
- Vinegar can be added to hot water with a splash of tea tree oil to clean floors or used neat in the toiled bowl (the tea tree makes it smell better as well as being antibacterial)
Vinegar or ascetic acid is a wonder product, with literally hundreds of uses around the home. Its even got uses in the garden as probably one of the most effective spot weed killers. Just be careful not to spray it on plants you want to keep!
There are plenty of non-toxic clothes and dishwashing powders available now too. For clothes I use a fantastic local Canberra product ‘Snow’ by Naturally Clean which is made up of natural salts and essential oils. Eco-Store also has low impact quality products. And because a little goes a long way Choice ranked their dishwashing powder greenest and best value for money a few years ago.
So why not use your annual spring clean to spring clean your laundry cupboard and under the kitchen sink (or use them all up and don’t replace). Apart from ridding yourself of nasty toxins, you’ll also save yourself money and stop all those plastic bottles cluttering up landfill and chemicals seeping into our waterways.
Need further convincing? There are tons of articles on the health impacts of cleaning products (hormone disruption, mood swings, skin and lung irritation) and the benefits of switching to green alternatives. Cleaning ourselves to death is a sobering read but you can save yourself the bother by simply switching to green cleaning this spring!