Do It Gorgeously: How to Make Less Toxic, Less Expensive, and More Beautiful Products (50 page)

HOW TO

1.
Mix the ingredients together in a glass measuring cup and pour into the sprayer.

2.
Remember to label your sprayer.

ALTERNATIVE PINE FLOOR CLEANER

Many of us have been raised sniffing the strong scent of Pine-Sol. It seems to be synonymous with cleanliness. The scent always used to fill me with a great sense of germ-busting satisfaction—a sort of “that’s zapped ’em” kind of triumph. Now that I know what most of those pine-smelling floor cleaners are made of, I avoid them like the plague and instead use the quite miraculous
Dr. Bronner’s Sal Suds (www.drbronner.com), which is available at most health food stores. It is biodegradable and completely safe—all the ingredients are listed on the bottle. It’s highly concentrated, so you only need to add a bit of it to some water. It also smells of pine.

Dilute 1 tablespoon in a bucket of hot water and give your kitchen floors a good scrub. It works for almost all floor surfaces, although I don’t use it on wood floors. You can also scrub down the walls with it, while you’ve got your bucket out.

DISHWASHING

You can use liquid castile soap or Dr. Bronner’s Sal Suds for dishwashing. They’ll do a perfectly good job, but will unnerve you a little due to the fact that they don’t lather up like a regular dishwashing liquid.

Provided you always have a full load, it’s much more eco-friendly to use your dishwasher instead of hand washing your dishes. You waste a lot of water by hand washing and rinsing, so here’s a tip that will avoid the need for too much rinsing and allow you to load your dishwasher in a leisurely manner:

Grease-dissolving powder in the form of baking soda is the way to go. Once you are done with a meal, put all your plates and serving dishes in the sink and shake a little baking soda over each item as it gets piled in. Be generous with the baking soda on egg- or oatmeal-covered breakfast plates and utensils, and anything else that’s covered in grease. Now
leave
your dishes in the sink, and go and shower or catch up with your TiVo lineup. After an hour or so, spray off your dishes with your sprayer attachment—just a very light spray-off is required before you start loading the dishwasher. You’ll not only eliminate odors, but this little procedure will help enormously with grease and any of those tough, baked-on stains.

As far as DIY dishwashing powder or liquid for your dishwasher is concerned, I haven’t found a recipe that leaves my dishes really shiny. It’s one of the very few cleaning products that I don’t make very often. However, I always buy an eco-friendly powder. I highly recommend Method’s Smarty Dish (www.methodhome.com). These premeasured oval cubes come in eco-friendly packaging and do a better job than many of their rivals.

In a pinch, I make a fairly decent dishwashing powder by mixing 2 tablespoons of baking soda with 2 tablespoons of borax.

If you’ve been attempting to live a greener life, it’s likely that you’ve turned down your hot water heater. Keep in mind that your dishwasher needs really hot water to clean your dishes well, so make sure you never run it at the same time as your washing machine or when someone in the house is taking a shower.

Use your all-purpose cleaner to give your dishwasher a good clean once a week. First, spray all over the interior of the washer. Next, spray generously into the cracks, crevices, and sides of the door and wipe off with a dry rag.

If your dishwasher starts getting a bit smelly, toss a cup of borax into it and run a rinse cycle with no dishes in the machine. When the cycle’s done, leave the door open for an hour or so for the machine to dry out.

Green Scouring Paste and Tile/Grout Cleaner

This is better than all the brand-name scouring powders. It’ll cost you pennies and last a long time.

HOW TO

1.
Place all the ingredients in a large glass measuring cup and mix well.

2.
Pour into your large container and either label it or write on the side of the container with a marker.

3.
Apply with a natural bristle brush for best results.

Oven Cleaner

This has got to be everyone’s most dreaded task. I have to admit that the oven isn’t cleaned very often in my home, but when it is, the job is made a lot easier by the wonderful grime-dissolving properties of my trusty baking soda. This is not a fancy recipe, but it works just as well as the horrendously toxic commercial oven cleaners.