green cleaning

I try very hard not to buy proprietary cleaning stuff - they’re stuffed full of chemicals, cost a fortune, and are usually not needed.  What we do buy - washing up liquid, washing powder - we try to have eco-friendly stuff.

Normally I get buy with bicarb of soda, and vinegar (but not together!).  Bicarb is a magical thing - you can clean almost anything with it; I used it to clean some tarnished silver earrings the other day!  For bad stuff - perhaps a burnt-on pan (but not an aluminium one, please) - just make a paste of bicarb and water, and brush it on.  Leave for an hour or so, then clean it off and voila - no burn.  You can get grease off a cooker with it, too.

Vinegar is a great cleaning substance too - and don’t worry about the smell, because it will disappear within 20 minutes or so.  I use it for worktops and so on.  Also, for cleaning the floors, I have a handy steam mop, which uses no chemicals at all; it’s also terrific at cleaning the bathroom tiles, windows, and so on.

Also for the bathroom, I can strongly recommend the bathroom set from Deeply Clean -  the sponge cleans the bath with no added chemicals, and gets all the horrid soap scum off.  You can get this from Sainsburys, and I think Oxfam shops sell it too.

And this post was actually inspired by Sharon’s post on Finding Simplicity, about making your own multipurpose cleaning fluid innabottle, which I shall try out forthwith - thanks!

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