Green Cleaning

In my 'no poo' post, I mentioned my desire to have a healthier household without spending a lot of money (See last post here.) One of the main areas this has played out in is how I clean.

There are a lot of options to clean without leaving your house smelling like a hotel pool. Norwex, Seventh Generation, The Honest Company, the list goes on... All good options, but not necessary purchases, in my opinion.

So here are the items I use to clean my house:


I also use these at times, but they are optional:


And I use Dr. Bronners castile soap, which I would recommend, but also optional:


I feel kind of dorky posting my home cleaning methods, you can find similar posts all over the internet, but several people have asked about them, so I will oblige despite feeling like a dork. :)

First up: the kitchen sink! I never felt like I could get my kitchen sink very clean without using harsh cleaners that didn't at all leave me with a 'clean' feeling. Enter another use for baking soda and white vinegar!


This seriously takes me less than two minutes and leaves me with a nice looking sink and a feeling of cleanliness in my kitchen which is always a good thing!

Lightly dust your sink surface with baking soda like this:


Then douse a cleaning cloth with white vinegar and scrub it down. I usually re-vinegarize my cloth halfway through.

The white vinegar disinfects your surface, while the baking soda acts as a scouring agent. And, if you ever took a science class in middle school, you know that combining the two of them makes for some fun foaming action. :)

Rinse it down with water, and it will look like this:



I also like to freshen up my garbage disposal, because it's usually the culprit of foul odors around my sink.
Throw a handful of ice cubes down into your disposal.


And then a slice or two of lemon and run your disposal (with water of course).


 The ice cubes sharpen the blades, while the lemon cleans and leaves a nice smell.

And then feel free to wash up some fresh produce in your very clean sink that does not smell like a hotel pool (if you can't tell, I'm not big on hotel pools).

5 comments:

L, Ann and boys said...

ick, hotel pool, I know. I'm the annoying mom that keeps harping "don't swallow the water, don't swallow, your diaper will be icky". And the last time we hung out by the fumes, Gisella's chest was rattle-y for and hour or two directly following. :/ Dumb chlorine. Not that I want diseases floating around in the water, but still, it's so strong. I've never heard of the ice cubes in the disposal. Cool! Oh my, so dorky with that pun, but I'm leaving it for my mom. :) She would just love that.

Sara Huber said...

Can't wait til Pfledderer weekend next year when Henrik is begging to get in that lovely smelling pool!
I will have to try your method on my sink...

sarah.flyingkites said...

very informative! Thank you!

leah said...

fun post - i'll have to keep these tricks in mine. i do the lemon one a lot, but never with ice cubes! good idea! :)

Molly said...

I'd like to know more about using the hydrogen peroxide and how it helps, what it's used for, etc. Just for future posts' sake:)