Cleaning with Basic H

I cleaned my tub with Basic H cleaner yesterday.  I hate cleaning tubs.  You actually have to scrub them.  Apparently now that I use real soap instead of detergent (e.g. shampoo) I am going to have more build up in my shower.  Soap reacting with water leaves salt = shower scum.  Wonderful.  Did I mention I hate cleaning tubs?  The scrubbing.

But!

Basic H works as well as Clorox with Bleach (my old favorite tub cleaner), only without me accidentally bleaching something.  I'm clumsy and absentminded, accidental bleachage happens all the time.  Seriously.  I spray on Basic H, wipe out the tub (wipe, not scrub) and leave.  Huzzah!

If you are determined to clean your house with "safe" ingredients, but don't want to buy anything extra, use a combination of castile soap, baking soda, and vinegar.  That will get anything clean with a little hot water and some scrubbing.  Trust me.  Just don't ever mix the vinegar with the other two ingredients, unless you happen to be conducting a first grade volcano science experiment.

Using a cleaning process with three ingredients seems like too much work, though.  If you want to know more about it, read about someone who cleans that way here.  Her instructions for using baking soda, vinegar, and castile soap are what all my other hippie friends have instructed me to do.  It might be super cheap to clean that way, but I'd rather buy time.  Or, at least buy time that I don't have to spend cleaning.  The extra pennies per squirt to buy something a little more traditional seem well worth it to me.

This is why I use Shaklee products.  They're still super safe, environmentally friendly, yadda yadda yadda.  But easy to use.  One squirt and I can move on with my life!

I have used Basic H to clean my stove, spots in the carpet, the bathroom, the counters.  It hasn't met anything we've thrown at it yet that it couldn't clean!

Three Roads to “Clean”: Thermal, Mechanical, and Chemical

Three Roads to “Clean”: Thermal, Mechanical, and Chemical

This blog about cleaning methods is useful, even if you don't use all natural products.  Some of it is stuff you already do and know, but maybe not consciously.  I don't use the same all products this gal does, but her points are informative no matter what you use. I'm going to start adding more "thermal" methods to my cleaning. Should make for a little less "mechanical" frustration.

Dr. Bronner's Soaps - 'Cuz everybody's doing it

Did you know your skin absorbs three fifths of what you put on it?  Now go read what's on the label for your lotion, shampoo, and body wash.  Eeeeew!  Time to change.

Every site I've visited mentions Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps.  They are the ultimate in multitasking, granola products.  I have purchased one of their body bars before out of curiosity more than for any health-conscious reasons, and I remember my reaction being "meh."  However, since apparently lots of all natural, super healthy, safe, plant derived, blah, blah, blah stuff doesn't actually work, I figured I'd take the safe road and try this first as a body wash and as a shampoo.

I got a bottle of peppermint castille soap (it was soooo hard to choose between peppermint and citrus!).  Most websites suggested diluting the soap to half soap, half water before using it.

Now, Dr. Bronner's products are famous for being versatile.  Unfortunately, since I already bought all of the Shaklee cleaning products (which ran about the same price as Dr. Bronner's would break down to for their laundry detergent, and their Basic H multipurpose cleaner was actually even cheaper) I did not plan to use the castille soap for housecleaning.  I did, however, need some me cleaners.


Body Wash
I squirted a few drops of this on my loofah and scrubbed like I normally would.  I was surprised that the soap lathered a bit as I thought soap only did that with artificial whatevers added.  The peppermint made the soap tingly and wonderful!

I had heard that castille soap can be a bit drying, but that was not the case.  New favorite body wash!


Shampoo
This is coming out in a later post.  Click here.


Shaving Cream
This stuff was FABULOUS as shaving cream!  I've been using oil like my mother before me, and this was so much better!  Don't dither or dally... run, run to the store.  You will never shave with anything else.  Evar.  It is not like shaving with other kinds of soap that leaves your skin irritated.  I was serious about running to the store.  Why are you still reading this?


Shower Cleaner
After a fun scrub-a-dub bathtime with my new soap goodness, I thought I'd try to clean the tub with the soap.  This failed miserably.  I even left the soap on for a while to see if it would do any better at cutting through the accumulation on our tub walls  (I later learned that soap moves dirt around, while detergent and baking soda cut through soap for scrubbing!).  Shaklee products will still be my cleaning products.  However, Dr. Bronner's body products have far surpassed Shaklee's body products for effectiveness.  I'm ridiculously pleased.

Overall the castile soap was a winner.  It's very economical because of all the things it can do.  Plus, the peppermint smells fabulous!  There are a gazillion "recipes" for all of the possible uses for the stuff online.  Buy a bottle, have some fun, and no longer worry when your cats or kids eat things they shouldn't.

Going Granola?

We all have those friends who do things that are just plain strange.  With the advent of social networking, the strangeness can become pervasive.  Seriously, every time I open my browser one of said friends has recently been posting about all the stuff she ISN'T using... diapers, shampoo, conditioner, chemical cleaners, and so forth.  She gets a lot of interesting comments from other strange folks who are doing the same thing.  Now, I've tried to use all natural products here and there, with limited (okay, no) success.


Recently, some health concerns have me ready to try, try again.  With that being said, I'm not brave enough to buy all the strange ingredients to make my own, well, everything.  So I started off by buying Shaklee housecleaners and laundry stuff.  I love their vitamins, so Shaklee's homecare line should be good too, right?  I mean, how different can they be?  Actually, this little chemical-free endeavor went really, really well!  I was inspired, and continued on my quest to eradicate unpronounceable ingredients from my house. 


At the end of this "going granola" experiment I plan to post a page with all of my favorite recipes and what works the best!


Update:  Said page is done!  Click Here.