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!

Thursday’s tip: Clean your drains April 12, 2007

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right? Clean your drains before they get totally clogged. I’ve noticed that my drains don’t clog much now that I have super short hair. But if you don’t want to cut your hair to save your drain (really, that isn’t a very good reason to cut your hair, is it?), clean them out periodically and you won’t get a major clog. Really, it’s easy!

Pour about ½ cup of baking soda down your drain, follow with about double that amount of vinegar, and then seal with your drain plug. Follow 15 minutes later with boiling water. Kids love to help with this household maintenance task and the ingredients are totally safe (except, need I say?, the boiling water), so engage help!

Thursday’s tip: Spot mopping ease March 16, 2007

Just because you don’t like the chemicals in convenience cleaning products like Swiffer doesn’t mean you can’t use the idea! Don’t ditch your Swiffer! Just keep a spray bottle next to it filled with a mixture of 1 part white vinegar, 1 part water, and scented with your favorite essential oil. I recommend eucalyptus and lavender, but even without the essential oils you’ll have a nice cleaning solution. The smell of vinegar dissipates as it dries.

When you need it, spray your tile or laminate floors (anything except hard wood) with the solution whenever you need a little spot cleaned, run over it with the swiffer, and no need to rinse. Voila!

On bleach February 25, 2007

Someone asked me today why I recommend staying away from bleach. As a mother of 3, she’s been keeping the house clean with bleach and using it to keep her kids from infection. So what’s the big deal? In fact, I have plenty of friends who use bleach for a variety of cleaning and disinfecting purposes.

There’s the obvious risk that we all know about – swallowing bleach could be fatal. And so, we keep it where kids can’t get to it. Common sense. But is it so common? 53% of all calls to poison control centers are for children under the age of 6, and the vast majority are unintentional ingestion of medicines or cleaning supplies.

The next risk is that of mixing. Mixing chlorine with all sorts of things can cause harmful, and often toxic gasses. But bleach should always be mixed with water. Using it full strength can break down most fabrics and in fact metals (think of what it does to your body!).

Bleach and other chemicals don’t just enter your body when you swallow them, you can also internalize them by breathing the gasses they release or by absorbing them into your skin. That means that the residue bleach leaves on clothes, countertops, tubs, or whatever else you use it on can get into your body or your kids bodies long after use. Bleach has suspected links to breast cancer in women, reproductive problems in men, and learning and behavioral disabilities in children. Now, these links haven’t been proven, but they are strongly suspected, and as for me, if I can avoid bleach – with all the suspected harm it can do to my family – I’ll avoid it.

Non-chlorine bleach is an alternative, but there are even safer things to clean with. Also, non-chlorine bleach isn’t a disinfectant. You can disinfect with diluted tea tree oil or white vinegar, and both of those are natural. But don’t mix your non-chlorine bleach with either – it’s best to use them separately, and only mix your bleach (chlorinated or not) with water.

Our friend vinegar February 14, 2007

Natural cleaning folks and the green-minded have known for ages that vinegar is an important cleaning agent. You can use it as a disinfectant, fabric softener, all purpose and glass cleaner, the list goes on. But I was pleasantly surprised (as well as entertained) by what I found at Joey Green’s Wacky Uses website. Here’s a selection of the useful, surprising, and truly wacky uses for household vinegar (specifically, the Heinz brand, according to Joey Green). Italics are my comments.

• Kill bacteria in meats. Marinating meat in Heinz Vinegar kills bacteria and tenderizes the meat. Use one-quarter cup vinegar for a two to three pound roast, marinate overnight, then cook without draining or rinsing the meat. Add herbs to the vinegar when marinating as desired.

• Dissolve warts. Mix one part Heinz Apple Cider Vinegar to one part glycerin into a lotion and apply daily to warts until they dissolve.
• Grow beautiful azaleas. Occasionally water plants with a mixture of two tablespoons Heinz White Vinegar to one quart water. Azaleas love acidic soil.
• Relieve arthritis. Before each meal, drink a glass of water containing two teaspoons Heinz Apple Cider Vinegar. Give this folk remedy at least three weeks to start working. (this one doesn’t sound too pleasant!)
• Kill unwanted grass. Pour Heinz White Vinegar in crevices and between bricks. Or use a spray bottle.
  
• Cure an upset stomach. Drink two teaspoons Heinz Apple Cider Vinegar in one cup water to soothe an upset stomach. I’ll stick to gingerale and chamomile tea, thank you.
  

• Deodorize the air. Heinz Vinegar is a natural air freshener when sprayed in a room.

• Relieve itching. Use a cotton ball to dab mosquito and other bug bites with Heinz Vinegar straight from the bottle.
• Relieve a sore throat. Put two teaspoons of Heinz Vinegar in your humidifier.
• Turn a chicken bone into rubber. Soak a chicken bone in a glass of Heinz Vinegar for three days. It will bend like rubber. Who thinks of this?
  

• Condition dry hair. Shampoo, then rinse hair with a mixture of one cup Heinz Apple Cider Vinegar and two cups water. Vinegar adds highlights to brunette hair, restores the acid mantel, and removes soap film and sebum oil.
• Repel ants. Use a spray bottle or mister filled with a solution of equal parts Heinz Vinegar and water around door jambs, window sills, water pipes, and foundation cracks.
• Keep drains open. Pour one-half box of old baking soda down the drain followed by one cup Heinz White Vinegar. When the bubbling stops, run the hot water.
  

• Remove decals or bumper stickers. Soak a cloth in Heinz Vinegar and cover the decal or bumper sticker for several minutes until the vinegar soaks in. The decals and bumper stickers should peel off easily.

• Prevent lint from clinging to clothes. Add one cup Heinz Vinegar to each wash load.
• Prevent ice from forming on a car windshield overnight. Coat the window with a solution of three parts Heinz White or Apple Cider Vinegar to one part water.
• Prolong the life of flowers in a vase. Add two tablespoons of Heinz White Vinegar plus three tablespoons of sugar per quart of warm water. Stems should be in three to four inches of water.
• Relieve a cold. Mix one-quarter cup Heinz Apple Cider Vinegar with one-quarter cup honey. Take one tablespoon six to eight times daily.
• Prevent soapy film on glassware. Place a cup of Heinz White Vinegar on the bottom rack of your dishwasher, run for five minutes, then run though the full cycle. A cup of white vinegar run through the entire cycle once a month will also reduce soap scum on the inner workings.
• Unclog a shower head. Unscrew the shower head, remove the rubber washer, place the head in a pot filled with equal parts Heinz Vinegar and water, bring to a boil, then simmer for five minutes. A better idea – Put the vinegar and water in a zip-lock baggie, place over your connected shower head, and secure with a strong rubber band. Let sit 30 minutes.
  
• Relieve a cough. Mix one-half cup Heinz Apple Cider Vinegar, one-half cup water, one teaspoon cayenne pepper, and four teaspoons honey. Take one tablespoon when cough acts up. Take another tablespoon at bedtime.