Even though there's still over a foot of snow outside, my spring cleaning alarm went off. I spent most of yesterday doing tasks that I've neglected during my winter slump. Floors, bathrooms, dust bunny wrangling, cobweb removal and cleaning handprints from just about every vertical or horizontal surface in the house - I was a human dynamo. What's really amazing is that I accomplished it all with a broom, a dustpan, cleaning cloths, a basin and two cleaners: Dr. Bronner's Hemp-Citrus Liquid Glycerine Soap and Dr. Bronner's Sal Suds.
Unlike the toilet cleaners that are advertised on tv, Dr. Bronner's Sal Suds won't make you dizzy if you use it without ventilation. Well, I should qualify that by saying you might get a little swoony if you read the stuff he says on the label, but you can skip that. The stuff does have spruce and pine oil in it, so you won't want to drink it or take a bath in it, but it smells really nice and does a very good job of cleaning, and it wouldn't kill you if you did drink it.
For the hard water stains in the toilet bowls, I resorted to elbow grease with a pumice stone on a stick, something that I found at a local hardware store. Not only does it do a great job of removing stains, but I get some much-needed exercise too. It also sparked a conversation between my daughter and I about volcanic rock and minerals in water so it was an educational exercise too.
The Sal Suds is good for floors - wooden, vinyl or any other non-porous surface - and you can also use it for laundry, surface cleaning, washing your car or anywhere you'd use a general purpose cleaner. I use it like a laundry pre-treater to remove stains.
The Citrus Liquid Glycerine Soap smells like you just cut into an orange and it's very good for cleaning greasy dishes, but you can use it the same way you'd use any liquid soap. I keep it next to the sink and use it for handwashing, dishwashing, for washing delicate fabrics and even for counters and floors, when I'm in too much of a hurry to go get the Sal Suds that I left down in the laundry room.
Other than baking soda and white vinegar, that's the extent of my cleaning supplies. When I happen to catch a glimpse of what other people keep under their sinks, I'm amazed that they feel that they need so many cans and bottles, most of which have warning labels on them. And most of them also contain petroleum, something we're running out of and need to get away from.
If you believe the ads on tv and in magazines, your house isn't clean until it's been Swiffered, sprayed, waxed, disinfected, air freshened and slathered with enough petroleum products to equal a quart of motor oil. Why, according to the companies that make all of this, a person would have to be pretty simple to believe that a handful of non-toxic cleaners could do everything those specialized products can do.
Well, simple I may be, but I'm not stupid. All of this stuff is promoted as something that will make housework easier and faster, when in fact it makes it more complicated and time-consuming. My house is clean enough for us, not for a magazine ad. It smells clean, thanks to the Sal Suds, the Citrus Glycerine Soap and the fresh air that we let in through the open windows for a few minutes a day even in winter.
Of course, the worst part about all this is the damage all of these products are doing to us and to our environment. I feel strongly that we all need to take a good hard look at what we have under our sinks and in our bathrooms and think about whether cleaning our homes with toxic chemicals is worth our health and our planet.
No comments:
Post a Comment