Green Cleaning Update!

Last week I had the chance to clean for a friend who has a toddler and one on the way. Because she is concerned about the Earth her children will inherit, and because she totally rocks, she requested that I do a “green clean” of her place.  Great!  However, I had never done a green clean before and wanted to be sure to do it right.

I very easily could have gone to the mega-store down the road and purchased a whole line-up of  products newly designed and marketed by the major manufacturers of everyday cleaning stuff, but that didn’t feel right somehow. I want to do green cleaning, but not boost the bottom line of the companies who are simply cashing in on this ‘latest trend’.  So I did a little reasearch.

I hopped on the Internet and found tons of resources for making my own products!

Many of the recipes that I ended up using came from the blogs of  Annie B. Bond on the Care2.com site.  One of my favorite recipes was for “Creamy Soft Scrubber”:

CREAMY SOFT SCRUBBER
Simply pour about 1/2 cup of baking soda into a bowl, and add enough liquid detergent to make a texture like frosting. Scoop the mixture onto a sponge, and wash the surface. This is the perfect recipe for cleaning the bathtub because it rinses easily and doesn’t leave grit.

I used Dr. Bronner’s Lavender soap as the liquid detergent. For those of you not familiar with Dr. Bronner, he is a total whack job. But his soaps rock. Here’s a link to his site: http://www.drbronner.com/

I thought the scrubber was wonderful. It smelled so good and it scrubbed as well as the commercial product “Soft Scrub”. The only thing I didn’t like was that, without bleach, it was hard to make some of the corners of the tub as sparkly white as I like. Other than that, I will enjoy using this!

WINDOW CLEANER
1/4-1/2 teaspoon liquid detergent
3 tablespoons vinegar
2 cups water
Spray bottle

Put all the ingredients into a spray bottle, shake it up a bit, and use as you would a commercial brand. The soap in this recipe is important. It cuts the wax residue from the commercial brands you might have used in the past

I just used vinegar and water. It worked beautifully. And is cheap!

TEA TREE OIL ALL PURPOSE CLEANER

Mix 14 ounces of water with 1 ounce of Murphy’s oil soap and 10 drops of tea tree oil. Use an old spray bottle that has been cleaned thoroughly, and then mark the outside of the spray bottle with “Tea Tree Oil Cleaner” or with a similar name.

I got the recipe for the tea tree oil cleaner at http://www.ehow.com/how_2313363_use-tea-tree-oil-clean.html

I loved the way this cleaner smelled and how it worked! I was very happy with it.

In addition to the green products, I also use the Ultimate Cloth on glass, chrome and procelain/ceramic. The great thing about the Ultimate Cloth is that you can use it with plain water if you want. I use one of these cloths to wipe down surfaces after cleaning as well. It dries the surface, leaves no lint, and shines  the surface all at the same time.  I love me some Ultimate Cloth!

http://www.ultimatecloth.com/?gclid=CNr4iLfM7qECFQ9N2god4nvnJw

So, I feel like the green cleaning is going well. I still use a “regular” kit for some clients, but now have a strong green option!