It's Autumn here in the mountains of western North Carolina. My favorite season of the year. The only downside is what comes after - nasty cold winter, but I try not to dwell on that part. Instead, I turn my focus to how nice it is to open my windows to the fresh air after a hot and humid summer, and the dreaded air conditioning - which my husband loves so much. I love seeing the leaves change colors from their coats of bright greens to all the fall colors of rust, orange, gold, yellow, red, ocher, sienna, toasty browns and ... well, what can I say, I'm an artist and it just thrills me.
I get to pull out my sweaters and scarves and wear them. (I'm cold-natured and love sweaters and scarves!) And don't get me started on thick, fuzzy socks! I get to drink cups and cups lovely flavors of hot tea. My cats get all snugly and sleep, like little furry heating pads, on my feet at night. The air is crisp and clear, the sky is a stunning shade of, well, Carolina blue. Squirrels run around my property collecting acorns and building their nests in the oak trees. I start thinking of pumpkins and wood fires burning and cinnamon and apple cobblers hot out of the oven. Yes, I love Autumn.
One of the other things that comes with the onset of Autumn is a thorough house cleaning. Yeah, I don't exactly consider it a 'joy' as I do watching leaves change colors. It's house work, after all. Dusting, vacuuming and scrubbin' toilets ain't a party. The upside to the grunge work is what I use to clean. Now, that IS a party - a party for my nose!
Part of 'living green' is cleaning up your act with your cleaning products. Last post I got on my soap box about the dangers of shampoo. Today, it's a little rant about, you guessed it, cleaning products! Thing is, most of that stuff on the market really should come in the same containers they put hazardous materials in. Big ol' HAZ-MAT stickers slapped all over them. Warning! Use At Your Own Risk! Kills You, Kills The Environment!
In a perfect world, they wouldn't even have the stuff available for sale. But it ain't a perfect world. Unless we change our habits, it isn't likely to even be habitable in the not so distant future. Scary thought, that.
Before I became a 'greenie', I was just like every other typical house-keeping woman out there. I thought the smell of Pine-Sol and Lysol and 409 meant I had a clean house. I had done a good deed. I followed the directions, wore my fancy yellow Playtex gloves, and scrubbed and cleaned and wiped and disinfected. I was a warrior. I was winning the battle against all those nasty germs that crawled, unseen but dangerous, on all the surfaces in my house.
But there was one small fight I had over and over, and over again. I always came out the loser. Beaten by a tea cup. Go figure.
Anyone who drinks coffee or tea knows about the inevitable stain that develops in a cup used repeatedly for that coffee addiction. Oh sure, if it's a dark cup you don't see it so much. My cup, on the other hand, was white. At least, it was for awhile. Then, after a few months of use it was still a lovely white on the outside; ugly, dingy brown on the inside. I tried bleach. I tried several other tricks. No go. The dingy brown mocked me.
One day, just for kicks, I decided to try an old method I remembered my mother told me about. (She's a big hot tea and coffee drinker, too.) Baking soda. Straight up. Mixed with just enough water to make a paste. Rub all over the inside of the cup. Rinse out. No gloves needed. Guess what. That's right. Freakin' cup looked brand-spakin'-new. It was so white it sparkled. I marveled.
Then I got busy researching that most humble powders' cleaning power. Did you know there is a book entitled, "Baking Soda: over 500 fabulous, fun and frugal uses you've probably never thought of" by Vicki Lansky? I bought it. I read it. I was impressed. I highly recommend it.
While studying up on the wonders of baking soda I discovered the horrors of all my other, traditional cleaning products. Yikes! Wicked bad mojo in those bottles. Scared the beejeebees out of me. No wonder they tell you to wear gloves! Do the research, find out for yourselves. Find out not only what that bottle of 409 is made of, what harm it can do to you, what harm it does by leaching into the groundwater - not to mention the business practices of the company. Gives me chills to even say the words ... animal testing. (I'm going to save that particular rant for another day.)
I immediately bagged all that stuff up and hauled it to a hazardous materials recycling center. Wasn't about to keep using it. Nor was I going to dump it down the drain either. No way. This was one of those 'smack you in the face' kinds of wake-up calls to becoming a 'greenie'. The more I learned, the more determined I became to change my lifestyle right along with my cleaning practices. As I said in another post about becoming green, it was pretty overwhelming. So, I took it a step at a time. Cleaning the house safely, naturally, and as an added bonus, frugally. Can't argue with saving money!
Yet now I'm faced with coming up with an alternative. Still have to clean the house. Still have to do laundry. Wash dishes. Scrub toilets. Ya' can't not clean your house. What to do? Well, I had my first ingredient - sodium bicarbonate, a.k.a. baking soda. But it needed some 'umph'. It has anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and disinfectant properties, but it needed to smell good, too. Inexpensive came with it automatically. More research, more reading.
I read that white vinegar is another 'magic' cleaner like baking soda is. Met my checklist of requirements; safe, natural, disinfects, frugal. Sadly, it bombed on the smell-good part. Bombed in a big way. I was not to be deterred. The smell of vinegar is a bit of an olfactory offense, but the smell also dissipates fairly rapidly. You also get the quick thrill of a fourth grade science experience when you mix it with baking soda. Scrubbing Bubbles can't compete to the volcanic foaming action of baking soda and vinegar! You'll want to mix those two in a nice, big bucket. Trust me on that one. Anyway, while my new brew cleaned impressively, it didn't give me that "Oh my house smells so clean!" experience.
There's about a billion and one recipes out there in information land for natural cleaning. I think I read them all. Buy yourself some essential oils to fancy up your baking soda and vinegar and you have an unlimited cornucopia of flavors you can concoct in your very own kitchen. I tried more than a few. Funny thing, a nose. What is true about one man's trash being one man's treasure is also true about scents. One recipe said oils of rosemary and thyme would provide a heavenly scent of clean. Uh, not true to my nose. Another said rose and basil would be just the ticket. My nose requested a refund.
Of course, I have to consider not only my own nose with respect to smell-good stuff around the house, I have a husband who has his own opinions about smell-good stuff, too. I am inclined toward earthy, spicy kinds of smells, but clean smells as well. The husband, on the other hand, likes clean smells, yet also rather flowery kinds of smells. The art of compromise jumped into the mix.
During one afternoon of experimental cleaning, I knew I had hit on a winner when I got a visit from the UPS man. I had just finished cleaning the kitchen with my new test formula when he knocked on the back door. This stranger, in brown uniform and box in hand, quite literally, followed his nose into the house when I opened the door. He was sniffing like a dog. I had to take a couple of steps back and over to block him from coming on into the house. My "Excuse me!" got his attention. Poor guy looked completely surprised to realize he was IN my house instead of on the porch where he was supposed to be. He kind of shook himself, handed me the package and asked what it was that "smelled so good in there." I told him I was just cleaning the kitchen with a home-brew.
That really got his attention. A homemade cleaner? Smelling that good?. His words, and I quote, "You gotta' be kiddin'. I want that for my wife!" Oh yes, I found that really funny. To use or to wear, Mr. UPS Man? I got pen and paper and wrote down the mix. Made him a really happy guy.
So now I'll share that recipe with you ...
1 gallon hot water
1 cup white vinegar (cheap store brand)
1 tbs. baking soda
1/2 cup lemon juice (cheap store brand)
10 drops lavender essential oil (therapeutic grade, not fragrance grade)
5 drops sage essential oil (therapeutic grade, not fragrance grade)
I mix up a fresh batch each time, and I use it for cleaning pretty much everything. Put some in a spray bottle to clean counter tops and other surfaces. Mop water for floors. Take a 1/4 cup and mix with enough baking soda to make a paste to scrub the shower and sinks. Use a half mix - half white vinegar for windows. Use the same paste mix to scrub the toilets - but still use gloves for that bit of cleaning! *Note - I purchased the essential oils from Camden Grey.
Not only have I saved lots of money over the last several years (I make this for pennies compared to the price of a few ounces of brand-name cleaners!), it's perfectly safe health-wise, perfectly safe environment-wise, won't hurt my cats, cleanse better than anything I've ever used, and it smells pretty awesome. The husband loves the smell, too. Have to admit though, the cats aren't crazy about the smell.
If you are thinking of making a change to greener cleaning products, give this a try. I can't say you will think the smell is all that and a bag of chips, but that's the way noses work. You gotta' experiment. If you do give it a go, let me know what you think about it.
Namaste, y'all ...
Carol
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