Getting ready to use natural cleaning products!

[imnotsupernanny]

How do I start and what do I need?

I have some nasty generic "pink stuff" that I can't stand the smell of in a spray bottle mixed with water now that I use on everything. It's multi-purpose. I will try and use it all up and then start just using natural stuff.

I know I can use plain white vinager in windows with a cloth or newspaper.

What about the toilette?

Baking soda to scrub that bath?

I pefer to have just one thing in the spray bottle that I can use on pretty much everything. It has to smell nice and not make the cats run away. It also has to disinfect the area where the litter is kept and clean the bath tub well after I wash out their litter box in it.

I have some esential oil called Palmarosa. It says to dilute it in the bath or vaporizor or in a base to use. Can I use this for cleaning too? Mixed with vinager or something?

Any advice would be great! If there is a handy link I'd love that too!

Thanks!!

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by imnotsupernanny

How do I start and what do I need?

I have some nasty generic "pink stuff" that I can't stand the smell of in a spray bottle mixed with water now that I use on everything. It's multi-purpose. I will try and use it all up and then start just using natural stuff.

I know I can use plain white vinager in windows with a cloth or newspaper.

What about the toilette?

Baking soda to scrub that bath?

I pefer to have just one thing in the spray bottle that I can use on pretty much everything. It has to smell nice and not make the cats run away. It also has to disinfect the area where the litter is kept and clean the bath tub well after I wash out their litter box in it.

I think you're asking too much. A lot depends on what kind of dirt you're trying to remove, and from what kind of surface.

The closest I could come offhand to what you're asking for would be ethyl alcohol perfumed with that essential oil (snipped) you've got. Alcohol will remove some kinds of dirt from windows without rinsing, and could clean the bathtub and even disinfect the litter area if you leave it on a while. It might not smell bad enough to bother the cats, and ethyl doesn't smell as bad as isopropyl. However, it will be useless in the toilet bowl. It's also somewhat flammable, so you shouldn't spray it on a stove with lit pilot lights, for instance.

Baking soda would be pretty weak to clean the bathroom with; washing soda would be more like it. Depends on the type of dirt, etc. I wouldn't recommend regular use of vinegar on tiles, as it can loosen grout, but it could be useful in the toilet bowl if you use a lot of it.

Robert

[reducereuserecycle]

many people get by with baking soda and/or vinegar on everything. It is that simple

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by reducereuserecycle

many people get by with baking soda and/or vinegar on everything. It is that simple

Simple, maybe, but not always effective. I wouldn't recommend pre-mixing (the "and" part of and/or) baking soda & vinegar for any cleaning purpose, although mixing them in situ by applying first one, then the other, can be useful to generate bubbles on the thing to be cleaned. And there are many cleaning purposes for which you need soap or some other surfactant prep, such as in laundering many items.

Baking soda alone with water is hardly worthwhile on anything IMO. If there's something you've tried brushing wet with baking soda, I bet you could do about as well with the same brush and plain water; that includes teeth. They recommend baking soda & water for cleaning beer glasses, but if you're going to use some kind of soda for things like that, regular salt would be about as good, and washing soda (sodium carbonate as opposed to bicarbonate) would be better. The beer glass recommendation probably arose from lime soap deposits' causing too much fizzing, leading to too much head, but in those cases more soluble surfactants or "softened" water should be used.

Robert

[Twinklefae]

I was actually just coming here to ask this. So what DO you use to clean the bathroom with? That's my main concern.

Also, what do you mop your floor with?

I've been using vinegar for pretty much everything, and, as you've mentioned, it's not doing a great _cleaning_ job, although I've heard it's a great disinfectant. So now what?

[reducereuserecycle]

Baking soda alone with water is hardly worthwhile on anything IMO. 


i've used it to shine tarnished silver and brass and it worked great.

you can clean the toilet with baking soda and vinegar or Seventh Generation or Ecover toilet cleaner.

i like seventh gen all purspose cleaner added to water to mop with.

[KMK_Mama]

I use vinegar on my countertops, mirrors, and windows.

In my dishwasher I use Ecover tablets.

Dr. B's Sal Suds on the floor.

Then I use Clorox wipes in the toilet room and clorox toilet bowl cleaner. :

[imnotsupernanny]

Maybe it's b/c I'm not in the best mood tonight,but your answer seemed abit abrasvie to me Robert.

I do think I asked a simple question. I actually found some answers and reciepes for home made cleaning products.

I don't really know what etyl is or how I'd get it. It doesn't sound like something that would be safe for children,but I could wrong.


I only mix baking soda and vinager if I need to clear out my drain,otherwsie your right,it will be fizzy : It really helps the drain though!

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Twinklefae

I was actually just coming here to ask this. So what DO you use to clean the bathroom with? That's my main concern.

I don't think you can treat the entire bathroom as one surface, all parts of which can be treated the same.

First I should explain I'm in New York City, whose water is exceptionally "soft". (I put that and "hard" in this context in quotes because the only truly hard water is ice. The terms derive from the texture of beans soaked & cooked in the water in question, which depends on how much crust of calcium carbonate the beans got from the water.) It takes a very long time for lime scale to develop in the shower, and soap scum & bathtub ring aren't prominent. Eventually it must be dealt with, just not often here.

Bathtub ring I don't get anyway because I prevent it by having enough lime soap dispersant in the water whenever I tub bathe with soap. The bathtub is also the water collector for the shower, but so little lime soap forms that it doesn't scum up the tub before running down the drain. Fungus growth on the shower curtain and the grout is a problem in humid weather.

Vinegar will work on fungus, but it also dissolves grout. Therefore I clean the fungus-y areas with a solution of bleach and washing soda in water, sometimes with a drop of nonionic surfactant (such as Shaklee Basic H) as wetting agent. Bicarbonate ion enhances the activity of bleach. Try to minimize contact between bleach and metal fixtures; it will also eventually degrade the plastic of a shower curtain, so if it weren't so much trouble I might use vinegar on the shower curtain and the bleach solution on the tile.

To the extent soap scum exists, I usually wash it off with a solution or paste of washing soda. If I had harder water, I might consider using sodium hexametaphosphate (which I have a bag of), which is very quick on calcium deposits. About the most convenient way to get small amounts of sodium hexametaphosphate in the USA these days would be to buy Calgon Bouquet Bath, of which it's the main ingredient. I think Calgon water softener powder is phosphate free or nearly so everywhere you look now, but the more expensive and more perfumey bath salts version of Calgon still has it.

However, it's a double edged sword. Phosphate left on the grout may encourage the growth of fungus.

Years ago I tried out Purogene's Springfresh shower gel as bath foam. The chlorine dioxide it produced actually killed a lot of the fungus on tiles near the bathtub!

If you really want to disinfect, I can dig up a recipe for chlorine dioxide solution, if you can get the sodium chlorite. Right now I'm using some to dress a plantar wart removal wound in which I developed a pseudomonas infection, because diluted vinegar wasn't working fast enough and hurt a bit. Chlorine dioxide in appropriate concentrations is outstandingly mild, not a strong bleach on most dyes, a more powerful disinfectant than hypochlorite (Clorox), and less prone than hypochlorite (and much less so than elemental chlorine) to producing chlorocarbon adducts downstream.

The toilet bowl I use acid-based commercial cleaners on, liquid or powder, and lately the stains it has aren't coming out any more. I think the one I have at the moment is based on citric acid.

Also, what do you mop your floor with?

Soap or laundry detergent, rather dilute, sometimes with bleach.

Robert

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by imnotsupernanny

Maybe it's b/c I'm not in the best mood tonight,but your answer seemed abit abrasvie to me Robert.

Pun intended?

I don't really know what etyl is or how I'd get it. It doesn't sound like something that would be safe for children,but I could wrong.

Ethyl alcohol? It's the alcohol we usually mean when we just say "alcohol", the same as in liquor. It's the least toxic of the low molecular weight alcohols, although of course it has its well-known toxicity. It's usually cheapest in the form of 70% ethyl alcohol, a version of rubbing alcohols sold in drug stores, with a safe denaturant that just makes it taste awful and possibly upset a stomach a bit. 70% Isopropyl alcohol is a slightly more common, but also more toxic, rubbing alcohol, a little better disinfectant (which only matters if it's left on long enough) but no better a cleaner, and with a more disagreeable odor. If you use rubbing alcohol to wipe kitchen surfaces, a little of the bitter agent will be left behind as alcohol evaporates (even if you wipe it off). You could use vodka but it'd be a lot more expensive.

Robert

[reducereuserecycle]

for a clogged drain pour some baking soda down or on top of the drain, then pour in a huge pan of hot boiling water. it works really well. just be careful of that hot water!

[kissum]

I just use vinegar and water on everything, but I'd love to hear any other suggestions! I've found that in mopping the floors it just doesn't seem to do that great of a job.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by kissum

I just use vinegar and water on everything, but I'd love to hear any other suggestions! I've found that in mopping the floors it just doesn't seem to do that great of a job.

Have you tried soap? Is there some objection here to soap? Am I missing something here?

The substance that makes vinegar vinegary is acetic acid, which is technically a fatty acid, although it's not very fatty. Soap is salts of fatty acids, fatty acids that've been neutralized with alkali. When you mix vinegar with baking soda, the products are carbon dioxide (the gas which has been pointed out here as useful for unclogging a drain) and sodium acetate, which is technically a soap, although it's not very soapy.

Considering that people have cleaned floors with soap & water for some time, that's obviously not news, and if baking soda & vinegar are OK with this crowd, I don't see why you'd object to soap.

Could there be some environmental considerations, some byproduct of the soap making process that's objectionable that wouldn't also apply to the making of baking soda & vinegar? Or some side effect of the disposal of soap that doesn't apply to baking soda & vinegar?

Robert

[sunanthem]

I use apple cider vinegar like its going out of style. I do put vinegar and baking soda in the toilet and scrub with the toilet brush. I put water vinegar and E.O.'s in a spray and spray everything with it; counters, windows, appliances. I put baking soda, vinegar or/and salt on carpet spots and pat it up or vaccum. I put vinegar in my laundry to wash, or use a natural homemade detergent I get from the co op, but I'm going to try to make the recipe for that posted in this forum. I do like the 7th generation all purpose spray when I can afford it. Other than that....

Orange E.O. and vinegar and water works good on wood floors.
You can look up baking soda and vinegar websites and see all the amazing uses for it.
What I have the hardest time with is using rags instead of paper towels; I just love paper towels for spills.... but maybe if I get some of those microfiber towels I keep hearing about I'll change my tune.

I guess I do use some dish soap on counters sometimes; and I just buy that from the co op as well. Right now I'm using Lifetree concentrated dish soap with aloe and calendula in it.
And for washing the kids we use Rainbow's Baby oh Baby organic herbal shampoo and smells soooo soo good.

[imnotsupernanny]

Robert it wasn't meant to be a pun at first,but after I wrote it,it sounded funny and made me laugh and then I wasn't in such a bad mood anymore!

[Twinklefae]

Okay, I've figered out I need soap in my mop bucket.

Comletely not-snippy here, but why can't I treat the bathroom as one surface? The tub, toilet and sink are all made of the same stuff, and the tub and sink see the same kinds of problems (soap and dirt build up). Maybe you are referring to common products by their scientific names, but I've never heard of a lot of the stuff you mentioned.

I have no objection to soap, I just try to avoid harmful chemicals. I'm just not always sure what they are and tend to stick to the non-harmful, usually work vinegar.

Thanks for the help guys!

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Twinklefae

Comletely not-snippy here, but why can't I treat the bathroom as one surface? The tub, toilet and sink are all made of the same stuff, and the tub and sink see the same kinds of problems (soap and dirt build up).

Yes, but different kinds of dirt between the tub & sink on one hand and the toilet on the other. No duty stains in the first two, and no soap scum in the toilet. And no fungus on any of them, only on tile, maybe the floor, maybe painted surfaces too. And then there are soap dishes and areas where they drip and can leave gunky albeit soluble soap. And the toilet bowl is shaped differently from the other things and has water in it all the time.

Plus, there are some other materials in the bathroom: metal faucets & drains, glass, possibly paint or wallpaper, possibly rugs. Stories abound of people trying to clean shower door glass that's actually etched, for instance.

It's possible to prevent soap scum, and judicious choice of paint and ventilation can reduce the fungus problem.

Robert