Keeping it Clean and Simple: Home Edition

Lately I've been finding myself looking into and putting into practice clean, eco-friendly and fruity lifestyle friendly ways to keep my home clean. I've been using the green and bio-degradable products that we can now find basically anywhere fora few years and as much as they work well, I want simpler and cleaner than that. I've become greatly interested in DIY everything, I find myself shopping around and grabbing things that look interesting only to put them back because, I can just do it myself!

The DIY movement is nothin new, but to me it's definitely the best way one can get truly green be sure of the safety of the products used to clean my direct environment. Nobody wants to be breathing in fumes of questionnable ingredients that can be found even in products that are advertised as green.

My number one favorite thing in this category is Soap Nuts:

1. Simply they are a dried fruit that cause suds in water. Completely natural and they work great!I use them for my laundry but I have heard of other that use them for everything from hair washing to cleaning around the house. Bonus is that they are very affordable, 6 nuts last 3-6 loads. You can find them in most health food stores.

2. Next one is an easy DIY cleaner that can be used universily in our home. Simply grab some leftover citrus rinds and let them soak in vinegar for up to two weeks. Strain out the oranges and compost them. Dilute the vinegar mixture with a 2:1 water ratio and voila! Your own homemade cleaner!

3. To make a disinfectant so that you don't need bleach, mix 2 cups of water with tea tree oil and some Dr Bronners castile soap.

4. In the kitchen, the best thing to clean and disinfect wood cutting board is half a lemon rubbed all over and left to sit for a few hours, then rinsed off. It even takes out onion and garlic smells.

5. Baking Soda makes for a great scrubber, just dust it on any surface and scrub with a wet cloth.It's also great as a drain declogger, just pour half a cup down your drain and follow with boiling water to was it all down.

I remember the days when everyone thought clean meant the strong smell of bleach or other chemicals, I never understood it, because of chemical sensitivities the smell was always such a bother to me. And if anyone is still looking for something similar because they've just been convinced by the norm, just tell them to wash everything with straight up vinegar!