Environmentally Friendly and Baby Safe Household Cleaners

I use vinegar and baking soda for most things. But I also love Mrs. Meyer's cleaning products. You can get them at Target. Here's a link for 1001 things you can do with vinegar:

http://www.vinegartips.com/scripts/pageViewSec.asp?id=7

Link for Mrs. Meyer's
http://www.mrsmeyers.com/?gclid=CIj33dOgtaICFR5ggwodw3Sr3g

Vinegar and water. Vinegar is a disinfectant. I have a spray bottle under my sink for my counters. It's perfect for kid stuff. The smell goes away fairly quickly.

Here are some things I use.
once a month I clean all the drains with baking soda and vinegar (fill teh drain as much as possible with soda, pour vinegar on top to bubble)

Method brand from Target for the toilet bowl and the tub (soft scrub cleanser).

Vinegar and newspaper for mirrors/windows

Soap nuts (available at laundrytree.com) for clothes. These things are amazing and super cheap. I spent $20 on my first bag , which lasted almost 3 months and I have 4 kids!

For stains on clothing that need to be treated before laundering, I use Zote laundry soap. I buy it at a mexican supermarket. It's a huge bar for a couple of bucks. Got a blueberry stain out of white pants last week!

For almost everything else, I have a concentrated cleaner. My favorite is Thieves oil (which contains cinnamon and cloves) from Young Living Oils. (you can find a distributor on their website). I also have used a tea tree cleaner from the company Melaleuca. For general use, I use 1 teaspoon per 16-oz spray bottle. For a good, deep clean, I use about a tablespoon per bottle.

By the way, the spray bottles from the method cleaners (counter top, glass cleaner, shower cleaner) make the best re-usable bottles. Their sprayers never quit! And the plastic is very hard and durable.

Check out www.norwex.com I just heard about them because a friend of mine is selling the products but from what I have read and seen it is environmentally friendly and great for kids, allergies, asthma ect. The products work really great too! Im actually about to host a party for it, which I never do for anything, because I think it will be so beneficial to all the moms I know!

I like the Method cleaners but you really can't go wrong with vinegar, baking soda and water!

Seventh Generation makes anti-bacterial wipes. So does Clorox Greenworks, but I don't know how green those truly are, so you would have to check the ingredients. Seventh Gen also make a good laundry detergent that I like. Method makes an awesome handsoap. I also love just using vinegar and baking soda to clean surfaces and such. If you do buy name-brand, make sure it lists all ingredients. A green cleaner boasts it's ingredients, and a greenwashed cleaner will want to hide some ingredients. Good for you for making your home safer for your family and the environment.

I love Shaklee - one concentrated bottle of their cleaner make like 40 gallons. For about $15!!! Safe for kids and critters!

Vinegar and baking soda – vinegar cleans and disinfects, baking soda freshens, cleans, and makes a good scouring powder (I've brushed my teeth with it for decades). You'll save lots of money, too.

I like Ecover detergents for laundry and dishes – they better for me than other brands I've tried.

You can always go for the age-old lemon juice ... adding salt or baking soda into the mix with that will work as your abrasive. It helps disinfect as well as leaves a very pleasant smell...and there's always vinegar as well. If money is tight and I'm low on cleaning products, I use those.

I agree that Ecover is better at dishes than most other brands I've tried. The "green" cleaners at the store are very expensive so I've tried to start making a lot of my own. This book is a really good reference. I checked it out from the library and ended up buying it because there were so many recipes for cleaners and good advice on other natural brands. Good luck!

http://www.reneeloux.com/books/easy_green_living/

At Toys R Us/Babies R Us yesterday I noticed a whole line of stuff that was made for cleaning and disinfecting stuff for babies and kids. Don't know the name but there was tons of products to choose from. Of course homemade cleaners work fine too.

I'm transitioning into using home products for cleaning. A friend gave me a booklet entitled ........Can't find it now. I think it was put out by a "green" organization. I also picked up some small books at Barnes and Noble. Each book gives uses for one of the following: soda, vinegar, lemon juice, and borax. When I get them back I'll add their titles to this message.

Clorox Anywhere is a very weak mixture of water and bleach. 0.0095% sodium hypochlorite which yields 0.009% chlorine and the balance is "other ingredients." Water is my belief. I've used this sort of mixture that I've made myself and it seems the same.

It's my impression that one can use just a few very basic ingredients to successfully clean our homes.

The books are: Uses for Reynolds Wrap Aluminum Foil; Sunkist Lemons and More, over 100 household hints; Over 100Helpful Household Hints from Heinz Distilled White Vinegar; and Arm and Hammer Pure Baking Soda for Baking, Cleaning and Deodorizing. .

The foil book isn't so helpful for cleaning info

My honest answer has been to just cut chemicals out as much as possible. Vinegar and distilled alcohol (the kind you use on cuts) cleans and disinfects just about everything. I also keep some lemon oil for wood furniture and for shining counters and stainless steel (you only need a drop on a cloth). It also keeps dust from sticking as quickly on ceiling fans and other places you don't want to be dusting frequently. I use Barkeepers Powder to remove rust and other stains as needed. The best advice though is to get some really good cleaning clothes. In the car section of Walmart you can get a huge stack of terry clothes for your day to day scrubbing and cleaning. Then go buy some really nice microfiber for dusting and if you have laminate or wood floors they work much better than the mop. You can put them over one of those swiffer type mops.

I clean houses for a second income and outside of a few tools (pan scraper for those hard to reach corners around sinks, squeegee for large pieces of glass, magic erasers for acrylic showers and those odd spots like crayon, and some nylon pads for cleaning the oven or any caked on spots), I don't own much else. I will say I have tried everything. I make my own detergent now for price reasons and use baking soda and vinegar to clean drains. Even though Dawn has phosphates I still use it for the pans since I have to use so little and I rinse with pure hot water. I do recommend not using bar soap as much as possible because it makes cleaning super difficult.

I absolutely LOVE Clorox Anywhere cleaner! It's safe to use on and around everything. I've tried the Clorox brand GreenWorks as well, and I like their cleaning power, but I'm not crazy about the smell. I've never been a fan of Seventh Generation because it leaves a funky after smell to me. I DO like the Method brand soaps and cleaners you can find at Target. I also hear wonderful things about Shaklee cleaner, but I haven't gotten around to ordering it.

The Kirkland brand lavender all natural clothing detergent is nice (at Costco).

Babyganics at Toys R Us and Babies R Us, love the shower/tub cleaner and the all purpose cleaner. Don't love the floor cleaner, it foams up too much, I ended up using it for cleaning out the trash cans. Also, I really like Ecover's dish soap, I get it at Sprouts but I think Whole Foods carries it as well as many local health shops. 7th Generation now has a disinfecting wipe and spray, they use thyme as the disinfecting ingredient. But also plain old vinegar works well and is cheap! http://www.vinegartips.com/scripts/pageViewSec.asp?id=7

For household cleaning I use vinegar or baking soda.

I was recently laid off and am using that as a spur to kick-start a home based business. I have used the products from this company for the last 3 years and absolutely LOVE them. They are environmentally friendly, organic, safe to use around babies and pets, totally green and do a fabulous job cleaning. The company has been in business for 25 years and is very successful. This is NOT a pyramid nor is it MLM. I am unable to name the product in this type of a forum but will happily discuss it with anyone who calls me. T. ###-###-####

I am soooo glad you asked, because I buy products from a company that sells at wholesale prices that are everything from laundry, cleaning, bath, etc. And they are completely chemical free! Contact me at ____@____.com and I will be only too happy to tell you where to find them. They are all delivered to your door!!!

I agree Shaklee products are awesome!! They have NUMEROUS products From Cleaners to soaps to make-up to vitamins you name it! Loved thier prenatal vitamins. And like Kate said you buy one of thier concentrated bottles of cleaner and it lasts for a really long time. I have had mine so long I probably need to check the shelf-life and make sure it still good! Seriously I have had that bottle going on 2 years now! And the laundry soap lasted me like 4 months(its a big box(powder kind) for $40ish) They are very safe and enviornmentaly friendly!

I use Melaleuca for most of my cleaners. I don't sell it so I'm not pushing that. There are a few things that don't work at all in my opinion. I hate their dishwasher detergent. I have yet to find one without phosphates and bleach that actually works, even if I completely rinse my dishes. I do use their laudry detergent and dish soap though.

They also make a good disinfectant that I have heard is the only disinfectant besides bleach that is considered truly a disenfectant. It is based on tea tree oil and clove oil (or maybe its thyme?). Kinda stinky, but so is bleach. My cousin orders it for her daycare because it is the only thing the state will accept other than bleach. It is safer than bleach too. You do have to rinse it off of surfaces that are put into your mouth or eaten off of, but you have to with bleach also. And you don't want to overdo the disinfecting/antibacterial stuff. It kills most things but leaves the hardiest and those super strong germs are what multiply. So soap and water or vinegar and water are better for most cleaing anyways.

I use vinegar for a lot of stuff too. You can use it in your laundry. And recently I read an article about how you don't even need laundry detergent unless the clothing is heavily soiled or has oil residues in it. Apparently the agitation is what gets clothes clean. My friend stopped using laundry detergent and says it is the same. I personally like my clothes to smell like detergent so I haven't done that yet, but I have cut down on the amount I use.

Buy the book "Clean House Clean Planet" by Karen Logan

Equal parts of water and vinegar. Super cheap and safe!