What's in a name?

Just a little thought for the day

So far I have put up just a couple of posts about natual cleaning products but I am well aware that I am walking over a lexicographical minefield.

First of all, natural.  What exactly does that mean?  While defining it might be fun I do know that it should not be used to mean that a products is automatically safe to use, non-toxic or in other ways benign.  Borax is a great cleaning agent, derived from natural mineral deposits but you would not want your kids or pets messing around with it.

Next - chemicals.  this ia whole nest of controversy waiting to happen.  I know that everything is a chemical.  It matters not whether a product was dug up from the ground, given a quick dust off and popper straight into a box of whether it was brewed up in a complex, industrial process, they are all chemicals.

The difficulty comes on how to  differentiate correctly between the unpleasant, potentially harmful, industrially derived sort of chemicals and the ones that are in teh air around us, or in fact, are the air around us.

Bicarbonate of Soda

Bicarbonate of Soda

When it comes to cleaning naturally then bicarb is where it is at.  Some people (just do a search) think that is probably the only cleaning agent you will ever need.  I personally like a few more weapons in my arsenal against house hold muck and germs but bicarb is a very good place to start.

Warning and Disclaimer

I am not an expert on essential oils.  I tend to follow the guidelines on other people's recipes.  Remember that natural does not mean safe!

The oils I use are:

Lavender, Tea Tree and Lemon oil.  These all have antibacterial and anti-fungal properties

Cleaning the bathroom

Dampen a sponge scrubber, the sort with a darker layer of scrubber on the top, and use a teaspoon to put a small amount of bicarb on.  Rub well into grimy bathroom and then rinse clean.  

This works really well on soap scum marks but, and this a big but, you do need to scrub a bit and water may not be enough to rinse it off.

If you don't rinse it of properly then you get a powdery residue on your bath.  This looks dusty but is nothing to worry about.  On the toilet seat though it leads to a less than satisfactory, gritty sensation.  Not what you want at all.

If you are getting bicarb residue then use a second sponge, spray this one with white, household vinegar and use this to give your bathroom a final wipe down.  This will leave everything shiny, even the loo seat.  You might even find that you hear a nice fizzing noise as the bicarb and vinegar react.

Smelly Carpet and Shoe Mix

I got the recipe from the "How Clean is Your House" programme and it never fails.

Take an old ice cream box or similar.  

Empty in a small box of bicarb.

Add 2 or 3 drops of your favourite essential oil.

Put in the lid, shake well and leave for a few days for the smell to infuse.

To use:

Get an old plastic bottle and use a skewer to make holes in the lid.

This can then be used as a sprinkler.

Shake the mix over your carpet and leave for as long as possible before hoovering.

Or shake into the bottom of smelly shoes, just a little.

Alternatively, use the mix to make up little smell sachets that you put into your shoes while not wearing them.

You could also sprinkle some onto upholstery, leave and then brush off or hoover. 

Important points to remember

Hoover the mix off your carpet before pets or children go on it.  This really depends on the type of essential oil you have used, some are more of a problem than others.

Shake the mix out of your shoes before you wear them.  A few bits of powder won't do you any harm but I don't know about prolonged exposure.  

Cleaning with vinegar

I have found that spraying vinegar onto a microfibre cloth makes a great, instant shoe shine cloth!  I am going to keep a vinegar cloth in an old plastic tub so the kids can clean their own shoes without going anywhere near shoe polish.

It is way past bed time and I have a busy day tomorrow but sometimes I just have to write.  I really enjoy writing when the mood takes me.  Unfortunately, most of the time, when I have to write invoices, cookery adverts and Twitter posts, the mood takes me somewhere else and no writing happens at all.

This evening, while browsing for cheap white vinegar and baking soda on-line I decided it was time for a new blog.  This will not have anything to do with cooking or recipes, not matter how interesting.  This will be the place where I write stuff for the sake of writing and I won't worry about visitor stats or whether all the views I do get are from robots.  This is where I will witter on about random stuff like larp and gardening and probably my kids.

This evening I will mainly be wittering on about cleaning.  I bet you are all feeling excited already.  As some of you know I am actually a very qualified (if that is possible) and experienced cleaner due to many hours of lovingly caring for a National Trust house.  I have even been on whole training courses on the subject of cleaning.  Seriously, you can spend a whole day just talking about cleaning books.  More specifically we spent a lot of time worrying about to clean things without actually damaging them at all.   This generally led onto discussion on where you could still get old fashioned products and whether certain brands of metal cleaner where on the British Museum safe list.  It also led onto the wonderful world of natural cleaning products.

While I was working for the Nt the early episodes of How Clean is your House were just airing and the UK was waking up to remembering that people have used all sorts of things to clean their houses in the past and some of those things are very useful today.

In fact, not only are some of the old fashioned and natural (yes, I am using the term in a loose sense) products useful, they are often a lot cheaper than branded products and contain significantly lower levels of chemicals.  Best of all, they are relatively easy to get hold of.

My favourite 2 natural cleaning products are vinegar and bicarbonate of soda.  You can buy both in Wilkinsons, in the cleaning aisle.

Next time you reach for expensive bathroom cleaner try buying a spray bottle of vinegar.  Spray all around your bathroom and wipe clean! Spray on the floor and wipe clean.  I recommend using a microfibre cloth.

You can get a whole range of these cloths, depending on your budget.  I find that the five for £1 from Tesco ones work fine.

Yes, your bathroom will smell like a chip shop but not for long!

In contrast, the branded anti bacterial cleaning I have to have in my bathroom (I run a food business from home and the local EHO says I have to use it by law) contains 0.07% benzoalkonium chloride.  It is a very low percentage but a quick look a the Wikipaedia pages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzalkonium_chloride)  really puts me off using it at all.  If we were in the middle of an nasty epidemic then I wouldn't mind but for a daily clean I would rather use the vinegar.

Luckily I only cater from home once a week.  Then out come all the approved cleaners and my home gets a really thorough drenching in mysterious mixtures I don't understand but most of them have warnings on the back.