Essential oils: Lavender June 26, 2007

Lavender actually gets its name from Latin lavare, meaning, to wash. It was actually used in WWII to disinfect hospital walls and floors – I’d say that’s pretty potent, with what was going on in those hospitals! As fas as the essential oils go, it’s pretty popular for its clean, pure aroma. It promotes nervous system health and balance, and has lots of other healthy uses.

It has been used for nerves, migraines, headaches, tension, emotional stress, sore muscles or tense muscles. Other uses include benefits for the skin, immune and circulatory systems. The medicinal uses make it popular as a general additive for aromatherapy, but you can just as well add some lavender essential oil to your regular cleaning products, or add some to a damp rag to rub into your hardwood floors. It’ll leave your home smelling fantastic, promote health for your family, and do hard work as a disinfectant.

You can purchase essential oils at your local natural foods store, or Google it and purchase online. You’ll want to aim for Lavandula angustifolia, also known as Lavender Fine, as that’s the better type of lavender on the market. Happy cleaning! 

Please note: Lavender is not recommended for early pregnancy. When pregnant, please use caution when handling any essential oils, as most have not been tested for their effect on baby development. 

Bleach alternatives June 19, 2007

A full 50% of the searches that lead people here have to do with bleach. I have a feeling there are people out there who are bothered by bleach (for health or ecological reasons) but don’t know how to clean without it. So, here are some suggestions. The main purposes for bleach are to whiten and disinfect. So here it is:

• To whiten stained spots on clothing: put some lemon juice on the spot, rub in a bit of salt, and leave it in the sun for an hour or two. It lifts the stain.
• To clean spills from health contaminants (raw meat or eggs in the kitchen, urine in the bathroom): Straight vinegar is a great disinfectant. I advise keeping a sponge with vinegar near your cutting boards for frequent use.
• To whiten laminate counter tops: Bon Ami – it’s a powder found at the grocery store in a canister – usually right next to Bar Keeper’s friend (which also works relatively well. But we prefer Bon Ami – it uses less elbow grease, and less elbow grease means more cleaning stamina!). We’ve removed coffee stains, raspberry, blueberry, and strawberry stains, and marks from the bottom of pots and pans.
• To disinfect:
  • Borax: buy it in the supermarket where they sell detergents – in my grocery store it’s next to the powdered dishwasher detergents. Borax is a powder and is safe to mix with virtually anything. Combine it with some vinegar, lemon juice, or just plain water to clean virtually anything. It’s completely harmless and safe to use. Gloves and ventilation not required (as opposed to bleach).
  • Vinegar: it disinfects, kills mold, bacteria, and germs. (As an aside: bleach does not kill mold – it just whitens it so you don’t see it. But bleach will leave living mold spores that will continue to grow.) Vinegar’s potency is released when combined with salt, so for a nice strong disinfectant add some salt to your vinegar, dilute with water if you’d like, and spray away. I just used it to clean the toilet seat in the bathroom where my little girl is potty-training. It works remarkably well.

Any more alternative uses you need for bleach? Let me know and I’ll fill you in!

Wart removal? June 19, 2007

I love checking my blog stats for how people got to this blog. Sometimes it makes me laugh, other times I come across truly worrisome search terms. Like one I found today – “kill warts with bleach.” Please be aware that bleach is meant to be used with gloves. It is an acute skin irritant, and while it may kill warts (I don’t know if this is true), it could also kill or burn any other skin it comes into contact with. In fact, my staunch advice is to get rid of your bleach. It’s too hazardous and doesn’t pack enough punch to make the dangers worthwhile. If you’re a die-hard bleach addict, do your family a favor and at least switch to non-chlorinated version. But my suggestion… rid your house of the all bleach and thank me later.

Instead, try duct tape. (No, really, I’m serious)  I saw an article about it posted in my pediatrician’s office this morning when we were there to discuss Little Man’s seizures (it’s been a weird week), and I googled it when I got home. Here’s the procedure (from CBS news):

In the study, patients wore duct tape over their warts for six days. Then they removed the tape, soaked the area in water and used an emery board or pumice stone to scrape the spot. The tape was reapplied the next morning. The treatment continued for a maximum of two months or until the wart went away.

Great idea… Foiled June 18, 2007

It was brilliant. The problem: I have to wait to sweep my tile floors until the kids are in bed so they won’t track through my swept-up-crumbs pile and kick it all over the kitchen. BUT (eurkea!) if I had one of those cool non-electric dirt-grabber-sweeper things they use in restaurants I could actually have my 3 year old sweep up for me! (And oh, how she loves to help clean! No really, I’m serious!) Brilliant. Right?

But then I went to the Oreck store to try their Restaurateur. It turns out they only work well on that thin restaurant-style carpet. Not on tile. Or hardwoods. There are a couple more on the market – Hoover makes one. Maybe I’ll go to my friendly Hoover store just down the street and try one. I’m still hoping. How much easier would my life be if my kids could sweep the crumbs off the floor? Hmm… If only I had that, I’d be happy… (well, no. Let’s try again.) If only I had that, I’d be a better mom… (still not right.) If only I had that, my kids could contribute more to the household upkeep and share the load with me! Now wouldn’t that be nice?

Does it matter? June 15, 2007

“If it’s someone else’s job, why should I worry about how they do it?” … “If they sell it at Publix it must be safe!” … “If it was really dangerous, it would be banned.“

These are some of the attitudes out there about cleaning products. If we believe conventional wisdom, Formula 409 is perfectly safe for all of us, as long as we don’t drink it. And we know this because if it wasn’t safe there would be some public outcry, the grocery stores wouldn’t sell it, the manufacturers would recall it, and the government would protect us all from it. So therefore, every cleaning product purchased at a major retailer is perfectly safe, when used with common sense. And, every product used by a maid or janitorial service is perfectly safe, because they wouldn’t think to use it otherwise.

Unfortunately that’s not the case. The vast majority of cleaning products sold at major retailers are made with and composed of suspected and known carcinogens, mutagens (chemicals known to cause genetic mutation), products known to cause reproductive disorders, and more.

The fact is, if you have some sort of unexplained health complaints – frequent headaches, dizziness, shortness of breath, and a host of other symptoms. If you have any undiagnosed symptoms and are still using regular cleaning products, natural products are worth trying. Also if you’re pregnant, have young children, or elderly in your home, phasing out the chemicals could be a great way to improve energy levels, decrease doctor visits, and ensure the long-term health of your family. Stay tuned for some posts about the harmful effects of chemicals and what household products use them. You’ll be surprised.

And of course, if you’re in the Atlanta area call Broom Huggers (that’s us) for all-natural, non-toxic healthful maid services.

Product review: Simple Green June 9, 2007

I’ve never been a huge fan of Simple Green, even though it was my first foray into healthier cleaning products. In fact, I learned about it and got my first sample and coupon at a Baby Fair (no, it wasn’t a fair selling babies, silly! It was a product fair for people with babies!). I liked it, it did an okay job for me, and through it I learned about the health hazards to me and my baby from regular household cleaners.

That said, Simple Green always seemed to me like it did everything half way. It was half-way environmentally-friendly, and half-way healthy. It did a decent job cleaning, but nothing I’d write a blog about. Now, before I move on to tell you why I’m a convert, let me elaborate for a moment on the chemical composition of Simple Green. It’s made from a solvent called 2-butoxyethanol, which is a known environmental hazard, and it causes a whole range of health problems. But, according to the MSDS sheet, upon completion of the manufacturing process, Simple Green® does not possess the occupational health risks associated with exposure to undiluted 2-butoxyethanol, it is non-carcinogenic and non-mutagenic. Simple Green’s Clean Building products (lemon scent is not included) have also received the Green Seal, which is pretty trustworthy for making steps toward environmental accountability. The good: it’s safe, concentrated, and healthy. The bad: it has a pretty big footprint in the grand scheme of things.

Now, on to cleaning capabilities. I wasn’t impressed – at first. I found that it cleaned most surfaces just as well as other cleaners, with no difference in effort or time spent cleaning. So if I’m not going to save myself time or effort, I might as well go with something that has less of an environmental footprint. Right? Until I cleaned my stove top and oven with it tonight! Oh. my. goodness. I breezed through my stove top. The stove backsplash didn’t clean as easily – it’s a softer vinly-ish surface so I had to use a scraper (my scraper from Pampered Chef is perfect) to get off some of the grease spots there. But I’ve never cleaned my stove top faster than I did today. And I was so impressed, I decided to give it a real test and try it on my oven then and there! Now, this never happens. I have 2 toddlers. In other words, I only have time for one cleaning task at any given moment. But, I was actually so excited about cleaning that I couldn’t stop myself! I cleaned my oven. And it was easy!

So, as a degreaser (which is basically what you need for stovetop and oven), Simple Green is amazing. I’ve compared it to most of the other oven cleaners out there, and there isn’t an oven cleaner on the market that equals (much less beats) Simple Green when it comes to health and environmental concerns.

Home-made recipe to polish wood furniture May 29, 2007

The Green Guide’s tip last week was most helpful! They suggest making a furniture polish with a vinegar or lemon juice base, so that it doesn’t make your furniture ‘gunky’ like an oil-base would. Check it out here!  I just tried it – and I love the results!

How’d you get here? May 25, 2007

It’s always fun to look at my stats and find out what search terms brought people to the site. Lately there have been a lot of people here searching for “mix bleach with” x, y, or z. So here’s my rule of thumb.

Public Service Announcement

(Drum roll)  Please, folks. For your own sake, and the sake of your loved ones and everyone within a 500 foot radius, don’t mix bleach with anything except water. Also, don’t mix ammonia with anything. If you don’t know if it’s safe, don’t try it. Bleach releases very toxic gasses when mixed with numerous things, so just don’t do it. Ammonia does to, and the same can be said for any cleaning product that contains ammonia.  I don’t like bleach or ammonia in general, but when taken into some make-shift science lab in your kitchen or bathroom – it just isn’t safe. Friends don’t let friends mix chemicals.

Point made?

Microfiber cloths May 11, 2007

If you haven’t used them, they’re *fantastic*! There are different kinds of cloths – you can get them for all-purpose (kind of your go-to solution for most surfaces), for glass, for stainless steel, even for cars. You can use them with or without cleaning solutions. That is, you can spay on some vinegar and water (or your favorite cleaning product), and wipe-wipe; or just use it dry! When you’re done, throw it in the wash and use it again after it dries!  And ya know what else? You can find them in lots of yummy colors!

These cloths really bring out the power of your cleaning solution, or help you maintain a clean and healthy environment minus the chemicals (or vinegar or lemon juice – pick your weapon!). You can get them at Home Depot, the grocery store, Whole Foods, or even warehouse discount stores. If you haven’t tried them, make them your new addition to your cleaning regime this summer. They’ll cut down on your work tremendously, and once you start you’ll never go back to paper towels and t-shirt rags.

Breathe easy May 9, 2007

I feel like I’ve been bombarded lately with moms whose kids have asthma. I know their fears well, and their stresses. Anything that effects the way your child breathes is infinitely scary. I never thought I would say this, but I am so blessed that I grew up with asthma. It’s put a bunch of tools in my toolkit so that I know how to manage my children’s asthma. And not just that. I know exactly what they’re feeling when they have an asthma attack. I know how to evaluate the triggers, and I can test out new products and new places – if something triggers me I can be pretty sure it will effect my kids in some way.

I have this amazing benefit that I’ve been managing asthma for over 25 years (I won’t say how much over 25) and I’m so glad I’ve had that experience before having to manage my kids’ asthma, and teach them the tools to handle it themselves. The good news is that I’ve found a huge difference in my breathing ease since switching from regular cleaning products to natural cleaning products. The difference it has is mind-boggling. Honestly, when I pour Mr. Clean or Fabuloso into my mop bucket, the effect on my lungs is almost immediate. And sure, that dissipates while my kids are napping, and by the time they wake up the fumes are less severe. But they’re still in my house. So I appreciate it so much when I pour a natural cleaner into my mop bucket and breathe free. But just in general, I really do breathe easier now – I haven’t used regular cleaning products in years, and my house is a much nicer place for me to be. So if you haven’t tried making the switch, give it a shot. You’ll be pleased. And so will your kids.