Natural Laundry Cleaning Solutions

A lot of consumers use off-the-shelf commercial products to clean their laundry. Sometimes the choice is made based on the least expensive laundry product, or the product offering a coupon for the week.

Laundry is listed as one of the least favorite chores, and the fact is that no one really likes to do laundry, but everyone loves to have clean, fresh smelling clothes. But by using laundry solutions that contain synthetic ingredients, you’re cleaning your clothes in harmful chemicals.

These chemicals don’t always come out in the rinse cycle. Then if you toss the clothes into the dryer and add a chemically treated dryer sheet or you use a liquid fabric softener, you’re adding even more chemicals! Laundry cleaning solutions are one of the top causes of skin allergies and eye irritants.

Clean laundry drying in the sun. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But by choosing to go the more natural way and use organic or natural products, you won’t miss out on that freshly laundered smell and appearance. You’re still going to have clothes that look their best and smell great, too. What you will miss out on are the things that aren’t healthy for your body or the environment.

You can use laundry cleaning solutions you make at home, but this is time consuming and if you’re just getting started with using natural cleaners, it’ll take some time before you get the hang of making the mixture.

An easy way to go natural and save time is to use a ready-made natural or organic laundry cleaner. Not all laundry cleaners that claim to be natural really are, so you’ll have to check the ingredients carefully. The natural or organic cleaners that are best for both you and your clothes will say that they’re without any synthetic dyes, and they won’t contain any phosphates.

Look for laundry detergents that say that they’re free from chlorine chemicals. Also look for labels that say the product is hypoallergenic, and the ingredients are based on plants and not on synthetics. You can buy concentrated natural laundry detergents in larger containers to save money. Many have great, natural scents. (My favorite is Earth Friendly Products Ecos Lemongrass - I've been using it for years and it works wonderfully and smells great!)

To whiten clothes, especially clothes that have stains, you can use Borax to treat them. If you have sweat stains on shirts, put some vinegar in a spray bottle and cover the stain with the vinegar. Let sit a few minutes, then launder.

For clothing that needs to be pretreated for stains like an ink stain, you can put the clothing in vinegar. The smell isn’t all that great while it’s soaking, but it does come out in the wash and the vinegar will remove the ink stain. Vinegar is also an excellent stain remover to rid clothes of tomato-based stains.

Once you’ve pretreated any stains, just wash the clothes in a natural or organic detergent for a healthier way to clean your laundry that’s better for your health and safer for the environment!

Natural Laundry Detergents:

   

A Safer, Healthier Way to Clean Your Dishes

Food is the center of many of life’s celebrations, but at the end of the celebrating, when all the guests are heading home, the clean up has to begin. Doing the dishes, whether you put them in a dishwasher or wash them by hand, takes up a lot of time. And depending on what you use to aid in the cleaning up, the products you use may be environmentally unfriendly and unsafe for your skin.

Natural and organic cleaners are safe and effective for every task you need to do - so that means you don’t have to skip using natural substances to clean your dishes, regardless of whether you choose to wash them by hand or load them in a dishwasher.

There are a lot of natural dish cleaners that can give your dishes sparkle and get them shiny clean. If you use a dishwasher, you can buy natural cleaning pods that come with delightful fragrances like lemon or thyme. This scent can give your entire kitchen a fresh smell - while still being safe for everyone.

A dishwasher load of clean dishes. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Because natural ingredients are often better at cleaning than chemicals, you might not need to use as much of the product when you do your dishes. Look for organic dishwashing detergents that don’t have any chlorine or phosphate in them.

Organic and naturally based cleaners can make a greasy clean up job a lot easier by cutting through the grease. And if you get the pre-measured dishwasher pods, this even cuts back on time spent in the kitchen, too. All you have to do is stick one into the dishwasher - no time needed to measure and no chance of accidentally overfilling the soap dish.

If you want to hand wash the dishes, then using natural soap won’t just clean your dishes without unsightly spots, but the soap is often better for your hands, too. Find one that contains aloe vera or chamomile to soothe your skin.

Instead of using dishwasher detergent that has synthetic scents and colors, use ones that have citrus extracts like lemon so that your kitchen is instantly refreshed after you cook a meal with strong odors.

You can even make an effective cleaner yourself just by using a mix of borax and baking soda with an essential oil scent of your choice. This may not have the beautiful color and suds that you had when you used store-bought dishwasher detergent, but you also won’t be putting anything harmful down your drain.

Make sure you play around with the do-it-yourself recipes for organic cleaners to find a formulation that works, because we all have different levels of hardness to our water. And watch how your skin reacts to the ingredients, too. Just because it's all-natural doesn't mean you can't have an allergic reaction. Depending on the ingredients, and your personal sensitivities, you still might need to wear gloves while cleaning.

Natural Dishwashing Soaps:
   

Safe & Natural Oven Cleaning Methods

Cleaning the oven isn’t high on anyone’s joy list, but it’s a task that has to be done in order to have a clean oven, and get rid of any spillage so you don’t run the risk of starting an oven fire.

There are many oven cleaners on the market that advertise how quickly they cut through grease and clean your oven. While they do clean the appliance, it’s what these cleaners don’t tell you that matters.

You won’t hear that the fumes from these cleaners can permeate your entire home and can cause coughing and watery eyes - and even more serious side effects for some people. You also won’t hear that the ingredients are caustic. Caustic means that the ingredients can cause painful skin burns.

Dirty oven. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Natural oven cleaning methods are safer to use in your home and you won’t have to worry about damaging your skin or breathing in a caustic substance. If you need to clean your oven and want to use what you have around the house to do it, then you can use citrus fruits like lemons.

But this is more of a time consuming task because even using lemons, you’ll still have to scrub - and if you have a stuck on mess, you may end up needing something to scrape off burned on food spills.

You can also use white vinegar to clean an oven, but for the scrubbing action, you’ll need to use it in conjunction with baking soda. Even then, depending on the shape your oven is in, you’ll still have to put some effort into scrubbing it clean.

Both of these methods will work to get your oven clean, but they do take up a lot of time and since time is a precious commodity to most of us, you may prefer to look for faster, just as effective methods.

To do that, you can use a natural oven cleaner that’s designed to break apart food spills and cut through grease. You can find these natural oven cleaners in handy spray bottles available through online suppliers such as Amazon.com and many others.

Because they’re natural or organic, they’re safe to use in all types of ovens, including countertop versions. By using only the natural ingredients in these formulas to clean your oven, you won’t be dealing with any of the dangerous fumes, either.

Unlike the other chemical based cleaners that require you to saturate the oven and then wait half an hour before cleaning, with a natural cleaner, you can spray the oven - and because the cleaner works fast, you can wipe it down in minutes without having to wait as long. These natural oven cleaners are also great for cleaning barbecue grills, too!

Natural Oven Cleaning Products:
   

Environmentally Friendly Floor Cleaning Solutions

The floors in your home handle a lot of foot traffic, and if you have pets, you can also add paw traffic. It’s no wonder that floors can be tough to keep clean.

Besides foot traffic, there’s human hair, pet hair, dust and anything tracked in from the outside that can build up. Plus, you also have to take care of any accidental spills, and make sure you get up liquids that stain the floor. Some stains get ground in and can be tougher to get out if you didn’t know they had occurred.

Bamboo flooring.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s easy to buy into the belief that using a steam cleaner is the only way to truly clean carpets. And you might also think that chemical cleaners are the best product to use on wood or tile flooring, but you would be wrong.

Many commercial floor cleaners have too many dangerous chemicals to use in your home, and the water used after a chemical steam cleaning ends up in the sewer system, while the non-biodegradable containers end up in the landfill. Not only are these chemicals bad for you and the earth, they don’t do the best job at cleaning, either.

You want floors that are safe and clean enough to walk on barefoot, and you also want floors clean enough for your children to be able to sit on or crawl on - especially if you have little infants learning how to navigate the world.

Luckily, there are a number of natural floor cleaning products available that are much safer for you and your family.

Starting with carpets, you’ll first want to use a natural stain remover. You can find organic stain removers that don’t have any fumes, so there’s no chemical odors, and they don’t contain toxins so they’re great for the environment, too.

Once you’ve gone over any stains on the carpet, you can apply the carpet cleaner. Most organic cleaners are concentrated so a little bit can keep your carpets looking new all year long.

Even if you use a carpet-cleaning machine that doesn’t use heat, organic carpet cleaners will still work for you. Some of the carpet cleaners can be specially mixed in a small dish and used as a stain remover, so you can even skip the pretreatment of stains depending on the brand you get. Look for cleaners that have soap bark and great smelling natural scents like sage.

For tile floors, get a cleaner that’s multi-purpose and contains linseed oil. This is safe to use on marble flooring as well. If you have hardwood flooring, make sure the organic cleaner you buy specifically lists hardwood flooring, because not all organic ingredients are suitable for hardwood.

Some organic cleaners will contain vinegar and an essential oil, which are good for cleaning and shining wood floors. For any floor polishes that you use, make sure they’re vegetable based. 

Some Healthy & Safe Natural Floor Cleaners:
   

Frugal & Green: How Going Green Can Save You Money At Home

There are all kinds of ways to save money while going green. In fact, regardless of which is your primary goal (going green or saving money), you will find they complement each other nicely. Here are some ways that going green can save you money.

Household Cleaners

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you ever stop to add it all up, you probably spend a significant amount of money on household cleaners, from toilet bowl cleaner to sink scrubbers. There are concerns that the chemicals used in many of these cleaners are unhealthy, and, in the case of bleach and other substances, potentially carcinogenic.

As you green your lifestyle, it only makes sense to stop buying and using commercial household cleaners. You can make your own natural cleaners for a fraction of the cost, thus saving money and being green.

For example, baking soda made into a paste with water makes a great sink and bathtub scrubber, and can even be used to clean an oven. Combined with borax, a little liquid soap, and peppermint essential oil, baking soda becomes a cream scrubber.

Inexpensive white vinegar and water make a good floor cleaner for hardwood. Add a little lavender essential oil to the vinegar and water and wash your windows. (See this blog for more tips on this - just click the "natural cleaning products" tag for some suggestions.)

Honey (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Personal Care Products

Beauty products can cost a great deal of money, and some of the ingredients are dubious. In fact, substances like parabens, found in many cosmetics, have been implicated in cancer. It's considered green to use natural personal care products, but that can be even pricier. Making your own is far less expensive and just as natural and healthy.

For a creamy, moisturizing cleanser for your face, mix 2 tablespoons of Greek yogurt with 1/2 teaspoon sweet almond oil and 1/2 teaspoon honey. To make an exfoliating cleanser, add ground, dried beans, ground nuts, or sugar.

Instead of spending a lot of money on shampoos and conditioners, mix 1 teaspoon of baking soda in a cupful of warm water and pour that over your head as a shampoo. Apple cider vinegar (2 teaspoons per cup of warm water) makes an effective conditioner.

There are also many other ways that going green can cost you less - from fuel efficient vehicles, to energy-efficient appliances, and other conservation methods that help cut down on utility bills. Going green doesn't have to be expensive; in fact, it can save you a lot of money in the long run.

Clean Your Countertops With Natural & Organic Cleaners

Your countertops handle a lot of different activity. In the kitchen, your countertops hold appliances, cutting boards for food preparation, dishware in preparation for serving food, and in many cases, it’s where we put the groceries we bring in from the car until we put the food away.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bacteria from food preparation lands on your countertops. Food from meals ends up on your countertops, and dirt from the groceries also sticks to the countertop. Kids put all kinds of things on them - from a flower plucked out of the yard, to rocks, to sticky, dirty hands - and your countertops begin to collect dirt and start to look grimy.

Bacteria and grime in the kitchen is the number one cause of the spread of germs that can make your family sick. You want to keep your countertops free from anything that can harm your family - but that also includes cleaning supplies.

When you wipe the counters and surrounding areas with a cleaning solution or a cleaning wipe that’s soaked in solution, whatever chemicals are in that product are now on your countertops mixing with your food, and also getting onto your kids’ hands and maybe in their mouths!

This is why it's a good idea to use an organic and natural countertop cleaning solution. You can easily find these products in a variety of sizes and natural ingredients designed to clean your countertops, deodorize them and give your kitchen a pleasant scent, too - without harmful perfumes and chemicals.

Ava Anderson Non-Toxic Countertop Spray 
Party Code: 42532

You also want a cleaner that’s gentle on your surfaces. Natural all-purpose countertop sprays often come in a variety of scents such as basil, lavender, and more. The vegetable protein in these cleaners helps keep kitchen odors down, too.

Of course, you don’t want to have to buy one cleaner for your kitchen countertops and a separate kind for your bathroom counters - you want one that can do both jobs. An organic all-purpose cleaner is intended for both bathroom and kitchen counters.

Sometimes there are quick spills that you want to wipe up, or you might have dropped a piece of uncooked meat onto the counter and you quickly want to clean and disinfect that area without bringing out the spray. You’ll want something handy nearby. For that purpose, you can use disinfecting wipes that contain natural and organic ingredients.

When you have tougher dirt or stains such as a scuffmark from a can or other kitchen gadget, you can clean this by using an organic cleaner that has cornstarch in the ingredients. These types of cleaners can also take ink stains off counters; so if you were writing out a grocery list and accidentally marked on the counter, an organic cleaner with coconut oil plus cornstarch can take that right out.

Try Amazon.com to find some natural and organic countertop cleaners, or you can also shop at natural online retailers such as Ava Anderson Non-Toxic, who has a full line of all-natural cleaning products, beauty products, and more. (Use Party Code 42532 when checking out.)

 

Healthier Ways to Clean Your Dishes

Food is the center of many of life’s celebrations, but at the end of the celebrating, when all the guests are heading home, the clean up has to begin. Doing the dishes, whether you put them in a dishwasher or wash them by hand, takes up a lot of time. And depending on what you use to aid in the cleaning up process, the products you use may be environmentally unfriendly and unsafe for your skin.

Seventh Generation Dishwasher Pods

Organic cleaners are safer for every cleaning task you need to do - so that means you don’t have to skip using organic products to clean your dishes, regardless of whether you choose to wash them by hand or load them in a dishwasher.

There are a lot of organic cleaners that can give your dishes sparkle and get them shiny clean. If you choose a dishwasher, you can buy organic cleaning pods that come with delightful fragrances like thyme. This scent can give your entire kitchen a fresh smell - without all the harmful chemicals.

Look for organic dishwashing detergents that don’t have any chlorine or phosphate in them. These are also a much better option if you have a septic system, as these chemicals can disrupt the delicate microbial balance of your system and cause problems in the future.

Organic cleaners can make a greasy clean up job a lot easier by cutting through the grease. And if you get the pre-measured dishwasher pods, this even cuts back on time spent in the kitchen, too. All you have to do is stick one into the dishwasher - no time needed to measure and no chance of accidentally overfilling the soap dish.

Earth-Friendly Products Dishmate

If you want to hand wash the dishes, then using organic soap won’t only clean your dishes without unsightly spots, but the soap is also better for your hands, too, without drying alcohols or harsh sudsing agents. Find one that contains aloe vera or chamomile to soothe your skin.

Instead of using dishwasher detergent that has synthetic scents and colors, use ones that have citrus extracts like lemon so that your kitchen is instantly refreshed after you cook a meal with strong odors.

You can make a nice cleaner yourself very cheaply just by using a mix of borax and baking soda with an essential oil of your choice. This may not have the beautiful color and suds that you had when you used store-bought dishwasher detergent, but you also won’t be putting anything harmful down your drain.

Make sure you play around with the do-it-yourself recipes for organic and natural cleaners, because results can vary depending on the hardness of your water. And watch how your skin reacts to the ingredients, too. You might need to wear gloves while cleaning, as even some natural ingredients are abrasive and can irritate your skin.