Woohoo! New house! March 29, 2013

I’m finally in my new home, and I’m very excited about a return to healthy cleaning! I was using my microfibre cloths for most things the entire time I was living with my parents but my mom has a cleaning regimen that she likes, so it wasn’t 100% non toxic the whole time. Although, I’m guilty of using bleach to clean up when my kids caught the norovirus. I had midterm exams the whole week and could NOT afford to catch it! It worked because I didn’t catch it, but I was also obsessive about washing my hands…who knows what it was that worked.

One exciting thing about my new house is that it is extremely energy efficient. First, it faces West – which for us, having cold weather for at least 6 months of the year with strong westerly winds being the norm, this helps with having a garage to buffer the wind. We have spray foam insulation, which doesn’t lose its R-value even if it gets wet. It took MONTHS to get the city to pass the insulation, so I’m confident that the city made sure the spray foam was beyond what code is. I have a tankless hot water heater, and my furnace feeds off of the hot water (so no pilot light) and is a new type of forced air furnace that uses 50% less energy for the fan. My vents are small little round things that BLAST air around. It’s all very cool. We’ll see exactly how much this saves me, but over the year the estimated average savings is around $1000. The builder also uses low VOC paint, so that’s nice. It’s too bad there is cheap carpet upstairs that is SHEDDING like crazy! I had to empty the vacuum 5 times for just my one bedroom the first time I vacuumed. At least all my appliances are energy star appliances. 🙂

I’m so excited to get settled and decorate. I’m also excited to try new cleaning recipes and report on them here! AND, how exciting is it that e-cloth now has a body line? I’ll be putting in an order soon, I’m sure.

Homemade Laundry Detergent November 28, 2012

I was looking around on Pinterest and found this recipe for DIY Laundry Detergent . I wonder if anyone has tried it? Your feedback would be appreciated. I’m not able to test this myself right now as I’m living with my parents for a few months while my house is being built. I’ll have to make 2 mixes though – not a fan of using fabric softener in every single load – doesn’t mix with my microfibre cleaning cloths (which, BTW, are still awesome!) I may have to try finding a different soap to use too – no Fels Naptha or Zote that I’ve seen where I live, but maybe Sunlight soap (in the laundry aisle) or something more natural will work.

I’ve made my own laundry detergent before and you can read about it here. Eventually I had to stop because of the insane amount of soap scum build up everywhere – but that was when I lived in an area with extremely hard water. I now live in an area with softer water and will probably be getting a water softener in my new house, so I really want to try making my own detergent again.

Got my E-cloths September 11, 2012

Quick post before I head off to school.

I received my E-cloths. So far, I like them a lot, but I do see differences with Norwex cloths. Weirdly, out of all my microfibre cloths, I like the dollar store cloths the best, but I know they don’t have colloidal silver on them. The window/glass cloths from the dollar store are also really good. Just goes to show you don’t have to spend a lot.

One thing I wish E-cloths would come out with is the facecloths. I love the Norwex face cloths and they have already paid for themselves – I haven’t had to buy expensive face wash for me and my 2 acne-prone teens for the last month. We all have oily, acne-prone skin and the Norwex face cloths work wonderfully. As I get older I’m fighting patches of dry skin as well as acne, but the Norwex face cloths have balanced everything out.  I’d love to have more but the cost is holding me back. So, E-cloths, I’ll be waiting for your version. 🙂

So far, so good! September 3, 2012

That ‘fresh shower’ recipe I posted about last time ( here) has worked really well so far. By really well, I mean it has cleaned parts that weren’t 100%, so it’s done more than just ‘kept’ the tub/shower clean. For reference, I have a 1 piece acrylic high-gloss tub/shower. This spray gets rid of all the water drop marks usually left after a shower. Very happy with how this works! I can definitely recommend it.

And 3 years (almost) later, I’m back. August 28, 2012

And it feels like those 3 years are a lifetime. I’m now a single mom in school full-time. I lapsed in my ‘healthy cleaning’ during this time and had almost no time for blogging. A split from my husband and a move, starting school etc were very traumatic. Huge changes in my life meant I often cut corners. This last summer, however, I bought a home of my own (I’m currently renting), things are settling down for me and I’m committed to return to my non-toxic ways.

So first – I’ve discovered microfibre cloths – namely Norwex and E-cloths. Love my 1 Norwex cloth I have. E-cloths should be here any day. I’m going to compare the 2 and see how they work. I also found some really, surprisingly, good cloths at my local dollar store, and can now clean my windows and glass and mirrors with just plain water. So if you are tired of buying Windex or mixing environmentally friendly glass cleaner that makes your house stink like vinegar, a damp microfibre cloth and a glass cleaning/shining cloth are definitely the way to go!

Since I’m moving out of my rental, and my landlord is selling the house, I’m going to have a lot of people walking through in the next little while. I’m going to be in school during this time and I’m pretty stressed about keeping the place clean while in school, with 4 pretty messy kids. So I decided to see if I could find a recipe for Tilex fresh shower that doesn’t reek of vinegar. I’m going to try this one:

Homemade Daily Shower Cleaner Spray

I’ll let you all know how it goes – if school doesn’t take every waking moment this term like it did last term. If it does…I’ll see you in December, LOL.

A little bit OT October 22, 2009

I just found the coolest thing ever. You have got to check out this website if you are into shrinking your footprint upon this earth.

http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/houses/

I’d love to live in one of these – the larger ones of course. I don’t think I could fit my ample rear into the 65 sq ft one. However, the 700-800ish sq ft ones with a basement would be big enough even for me and my 4 kids. It would be perfect on a small (5-10 acre) parcel of land. I could grow much of our food, live simply and cheaply and reduce my carbon footprint. Someday…

Anyhow, check it out!

I took a chance. October 6, 2009

I splurged and bought an H2O mop on sale.  I was very wary, but the only other steam mops at the stores in town were beyond my price range. I figured I’d keep the receipt and if it sucked, I’d return it. However, I’ve been very pleasantly surprised!

When we were picking out lino/vinyl flooring for the kitchen when we were building this house, I wanted to make sure we didn’t pick anything with lots of grooves for the dirt to accumulate in. I hate ‘groovy’ vinyl flooring. And while I still like the stuff we did pick out – there was a problem I could never have known before we had used it for awhile. There are ‘fake’ grout lines that are a bit rougher than the rest of the area, and they are beige colored. Well, it wasn’t long before they were more brown than beige. Even with mopping constantly with my swiffer and homemade cloths, every few months I’d have to get down on my hands and knees with a Mr. Clean magic eraser and clean the grout lines.  It was a total PITA!

Well, I’ve only used the H2O mop 3 times in the kitchen and already the grout lines seem to be brightening up. I hope it’s not just my imagination or some sort of wishful thinking. I also love the way the floor feels after – so clean! And no vinegar smell, lmbo, I hate that smell. My swiffer wet jet recipe that I put in my reusable bottle always had some sort of strong essential oil to cancel out the vinegar smell, but I could still smell it at times.

And it works wonders on sticky messes. You know, when the kids spill something in an obscure space and don’t tell you and a week later you find a gummy sticky mess that no mop will get off, you need to get out the heavy duty stuff. This mop just melts it away. Love it.

I am worried about longevity, but for now I’m very happy. I’m just hopeful it lasts long enough to pay for itself (in vinegar, EO’s and magic erasers!)

Floor steam cleaners? June 10, 2009

I’ve been drooling after those floor steamers that seem to work like magic on tv. The first one I saw was the H2O mop and I thought, wow, how cool! But after I read the reviews, I was less enthousiastic. I’ve seen a few others since, some on infomercials, and our local trade show had one being demonstrated (Though for the life of me I can’t remember the name of it). To me it seems the ultimate in non-toxic cleaning. Does anyone know how well they work???

I was also looking at hand held steam cleaners. I really wish I had money for those 2 things at the moment, especially for our hard water build up that nothing natural, not even vinegar, seems to help. Then there’s the sterilizing aspect of it, which I must admit is EXTREMELY appealing to someone who has a toddler who likes to stick her hand in her poopy pants, among other disgusting things. LMBO, it’s a good thing she’s so cute ;).

Least toxic stain remover ever. May 9, 2009

So I was reading in our local recycling flyer, about a certain non-toxic stain remover. It’s shockingly simple.

Boiling water.

Why I didn’t think of this before is beyond me. In our laundry sink, we have a tap that can do a strong spray and sometimes I can spray most of a stain out. Well, apparently the same mechanism works well with boiling water. Before laundering, boil some water, put your stained item in the sink, and hold the kettle way up high, and pour the boiling water onto the stain. The force of the water, as well as the heat will get most if not all of the stain out and the rest should come out in the wash. I find this works MUCH better than simply putting a stain spray or stick on a stain. SO much cheaper and environmentally friendly too. I got a chocolate syrup stain on white out this way. I never get chocolate syrup on white stains out. Not even after soaking in oxy and boiling water overnight. The trick is the FORCE of the water. 🙂 It’s just too simple.

My house is a disaster. April 17, 2009

Much like my life at the moment.

I haven’t done much ‘natural’ cleaning, lately. Although I’m still using my own recipes for wet jetting my floors. For my wood floor, I’ve been using water, lemon oil, and a small squirt of Dawn. For my kitchen, I usually have a mix of vinegar, water, squirt of Dawn, and a few drops of Patchouli EO. Love the smell of patchouli – it is also the best at covering up the smell of the vinegar (I still can’t get used to it!!).

My next project, should I ever get around to it, is to knit some reusable swiffer duster covers. Oh, and I now have a swiffer vacuum, so I need to make some dry cloths for the back part. I’m not sure what to use though. I think polyester microfleece would be best.

Hopefully soon I’ll feel more like cleaning naturally. Right now there are just too many other things going on in my life. I suppose that’s the story with a lot of people. 😦 Trying to live naturally always seems to take a backseat to our busy/crazy/messed up lives.