Greener Cleaning - Made Easy | Running on Ipsum

I came across this article recently that lists the most harmful and toxic household cleaning products on the market.

Yikes.

I am ashamed at how many of them I have in my cupboards.

Toxic chemicals and kids just don’t mix – and they’re completely unnecessary, too. Have we gotten so lazy that we can’t throw a little elbow grease into our cleaning? We’re willing to jeopardize the health and wellbeing of our families to save ourselves ten minutes in the bathroom?

In an effort to find better alternatives to those awful chemical cleaning products, I picked up an amazing book – Essential Living: Aromatherapy Recipes for Health and Home.

This book has easy-to-make recipes for cleaning and body products that use nothing but safe, effective essential oils and household ingredients (like baking soda and vinegar).

For instance, I have always used Scrubbing Bubbles for my bath and shower cleaning – until I found the product on the list above that is. In fact, Scrubbing Bubbles is banned in the European Union.

Banned.

That’s pretty intense, and I use it like it’s no big deal. In my bathroom, in my kids’ bathroom.

In Essential Living, I found a really easy recipe for a tile and grout cleaner that I could make at home. Sure, it takes a little more elbow grease, but the end result is the same – and the amount of work is hardly more than the wiping you have to do with the toxic stuff anyway.

Most of the recipes use things like castile soap, baking soda or vinegar as their main substance – all of which you can find at any grocery store. For the oils, I use a couple websites that carry them affordably, and ordered a few based on the recommendations made at the beginning of the book.

Remember good ole’ Mop & Glo from the list above? The toxic product used to make your wood floors shine? Our landlords actually told us that we are required to use that – and only that – to mop the wood floors in our home.

No more.

This product took a little more patience, but it was fun to make and I got to get Piper involved too – without any risk to her from the chemicals.

As a bonus, I’ve also been making delicious-smelling body products. Lotions, creams and I’ve even tried my hand at lip balms (which Piper calls “lipstick”). I let her choose the scents and even used food coloring (just a touch) so that she thinks it’s lipstick.

Overall, the recipes are generally easy to follow, and they’re all rated with regard to degree of difficulty so that you know what you’re getting in to. Before long, I know I’ll have a full arsenal of essential oils at my disposal, but for now, it’s been a little bit of a cash outlay to stock my shelves. I feel ok about that, though – I’d rather spend money on products that are healthy and can be reused and repurposed than on toxic, one-use cleaning chemicals. It’s better for us, better for our home, and better for the environment.

Giveaway time!

When I contacted the author to let her know how impressed I was with the book, she offered to give one away to a selected reader. So now it’s your turn!

To enter to win your very own copy of Essential Living by Andrea Butje, your must do one of the following, for a total of 3 entries per person possible:

Share this post on your Facebook wall and let me know in a comment below.
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Post a comment with which of the above hazardous chemical cleaners you would use this book’s recipes to replace. No shame!

The contest is open until Tuesday, December 11th at 12:00 pm. A winner will be selected randomly and notified by email.