Green Cleaners: Clean Your Home with Natural Household Cleaners
(Page 4 of 5)
July/August 1990
By Ann Larkin-Hanson
I tried using both soft soap and soap flakes on our dishes, adding such things as vinegar, lemon juice and washing soda to soften the water and make the suds last. Nothing seemed to work. The dishwater became scummy, and the dishes came out greasy. For a while, I resigned myself to using my old detergent, only in smaller-than-recommended amounts. Then I discovered Murphy's Oil Soap. Made entirely from vegetable oils, Murphy's is biodegradable and cuts grease. It doesn't create any suds to speak of, at least not in our hard water, but it does work.
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Other biodegradable oil soaps and dish soaps are available in some areas, most often in natural-food stores or from door-to-door salespeople. just make sure the product is biodegradable and buy the smallest size the first time—so you can be certain that it gets your dishes clean before you purchase a larger quantity.
For floors and other wood surfaces there's no need to use commercial all-purpose cleaners, which may contain phenol compounds, solvents and surfactants. Oil soap was originally intended for and works beautifully on wood. And one friend of mine uses nothing but vinegar and water on her wood finishes, as her family has for years. Do not use ammonia on wood: Over time it can ruin the finish.
AMMONIA is good for almost everything else. I didn't use it for years, because I hated the smell. Then I found a recipe suggested by Greenpeace, the environmental organization: half a cup of ammonia, a quarter cup of vinegar, and a handful of baking soda in a bucket of warm water. It makes a terrific, nontoxic, all-purpose cleaner that is almost odorless. I use it on linoleum, the walls and in the bath room It's also good for scrubbing rugs clean.
"Eco-nomical" Alternatives
For about $4 I can buy a gallon of vinegar, four pounds of baking soda and two quarts of ammonia. This replaces about the same amount of much more expensive scouring powder, all-purpose cleaner, bleach, toilet-bowl cleaner, rug deodorizer, drain cleaner and window cleaner. And because our house is clean and free of chemical smells, we don't need air freshener.
Washing soda is also economical. Borax and soap flakes, however, are not especially inexpensive. On the other hand, they may serve as substitutes for a lot of costly products. They replace disinfectant, laundry detergent and bleach—and in my case, they've eliminated the expense of all the medicinal stuff I used to buy to clear up my face.
IF YOU DECIDE to switch to natural cleaning products, take my advice: Go slowly. If you're like me, cleaning is not something you do for enjoyment; it's a necessity stuffed into the cracks and crevices of your days as you find the time. Trying to make the switch to biodegradable formulas all at once is sure to be frustrating and time-consuming, because it will take some trial and error to find out precisely what works in cleaning your house. So be patient (but persistent), and wean yourself from commercial cleaners gradually. It's better than getting fed up halfway through and quitting completely.
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