What can make you quit your favourite brand of fabric softener or dishwashing liquid? They smell great, leave everything spotless, and are tried and tested in your home cleaning routine. However, if you knew how dangerous are most of the commercially sold cleaners, you would probably re-consider your current products of choice. For a start, most detergents and solutions nowadays contain toxic ingredients, harmful for both human and animal health. Many big brands are selling products labelled as “bio” or “green”, but they still contain questionable ingredients like colourants and scents that can be dangerous for small children or asthma sufferers.
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What’s more, there is a true treasure in your kitchen cabinets – substances like baking soda, vinegar, and salt that are among the basic ingredients for most of the expensive green cleaning products. These substances have been used for centuries for cleaning purposes. Ancient Babylonians found out the remarkable cleaning potential of the white vinegar, while Egyptians used natron (a derivative of the baking soda) to clean their bodies thousands of years B.C. So, why don’t we do the same and harness the power of these ingredients to make our own homemade, inexpensive and efficient cleaners?
BAKING SODA
We have already shared a lot of green cleaning recipes, involving baking soda on our blog. Using baking soda for cleaning is not a new thing. This basic ingredient makes a great abrasive cleaner for the bathroom tiles, helps remove unpleasant odours left after pet accidents, and remove grease stains from your oven and cooktops.
Check these articles for baking soda cleaning ideas:
Green Spring Cleaning Part 1 – the Kitchen
How to Live with a Dog and Have a Clean Home?
WHITE VINEGAR
White vinegar is a quite versatile product. First, it makes salads, sauces, and even meat taste better. Second, it is a great preservative and you can find it in a lot of recipes for canned foods. At last, but not least, white vinegar is a powerful cleaner! You can use it instead of commercial cleaner to remove mould and mildew from your fridge. It is also a great insecticide, and you can make a vinegar spray to chase away spiders and other unwanted guests from your home. Mix it with some water and the result is inexpensive, green window cleaning liquid.
Check also: 8 Things You Should Never Clean with Vinegar
TABLE SALT
During the ancient times, salt was as valuable as gold – it was known for its preserving qualities and it was even used as a currency. Now we know, that salt consumption is vital for our health – human bodily fluids has to maintain a certain level of pH in order to help our body’s functions. But apart from its nutrition uses, salt is a great cleaner too! You can remove grease spills from clothes, upholstery and carpets using nothing but cold water and salt. Just wet the affected area, sprinkle a generous amount of salt over it, let it stay like this for 1 hour. During this time the salt will soak and lift the grease from the fabric, and then you can just sweep or vacuum the salt away.
Apart from being excellent grease remover, table salt is great for cleaning bloodstains from clothes as well! Just soak the garment in cold water and add a cup of salt. Wait for a couple of hours and then wash with liquid laundry detergent.
If you are searching for a quality domestic cleaning service, do not hesitate to contact us. We work only with certified cleaning products, safe for you and your family and pets. Call us now on 0207 101 4326 and book your cleaner!
