I found some great articles about using natural products you have around your home to clean instead of filling up your house with toxic chemicals flying around and on the surface of everything you’ve just ‘cleaned’ and also just having the bottles of poison laying around for the kids to possibly get into – God forbid. Mary Hunt in the St Paul Pioneer Press wrote about using good old-fashioned Dawn dishwashing liquid and white vinegar. Just fill 1/2 a spray bottle with white vinegar and then you can either microwave it without melting the bottle or in our case, since we don’t have a microwave, just put it in a sauce pan with a little water and heat that up a little and fill the rest of the bottle with Dawn – apply the top lightly and gently shake. This is a powerful cleaning product that will melt soap scum and tub and shower buildup and clean sinks and appliances. Allow to sit overnight if it is really tough scum buildup.
For weed killer that has the power of Roundup mix 2 cups of table salt into 1 gallon of white vinegar that has 5 percent acidity. Add 8 drops of dishwashing soap. Label and keep out of reach of children – it is not toxic but will kill any and all vegetation so be careful where you spray it. If you want to kill the weeds that grow in the cracks of the sidewalk just do multiple coats and it will sterilize the soil so nothing grows for a long time.
Shiny steel – Olive oil or cheap baby oil rubbed in with a cloth will keep your appliances gleaming.
The following come from The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery:
To polish the rust off copper or silver you can use a paste of water and wood ashes – or you can clean the copper or rusty scissors, etc. using half a lemon sprinkled with salt, repeat until you win and make sure to dry afterwards (so you don’t start the rusting again). To remove tarnish, rub with toohpaste, ketchup, or Worcestershire sauce.
To clean painted walls – 1/4 cup turpentine, 1/2 cup milk and 2 T. liquid soap, dissolved in 2 quarts of hot water. Gives a nice finish to flat or semi-gloss paint. To get fresh paint off a surface (like your kids hands, arms, legs, etc) rub with cooking oil and it will easily dissolve it.
To clean the refigerator just use a weak solution of baking soda.
To deodorize jars and bottles pour a mixture of water and dry mustard in them – wait several hours and then rinse out.
To remove paper labels use warm salad oil – I’ll have to try that one as it sounds a bit odd doesn’t it?
To clean tarnished jewelry – soak for a few minutes in lemon concentrate – or if you live in a coastal region get some salt-water sand at the beach in a tray and roll or slide the jewelry in it and that works very well.
You can cover a urine-soiled area (we have had a few of those with 4 kids and you may if you have a pet also)with wheat germ. Then let dry. No stain and no smell.
These are just a few examples of ways you can avoid filling your house with harmful chemicals and exposing your children to the concoctions of some large corporation that doesn’t care about you or your health. If you think the FDA or whatever government body is protecting you and they only allow safe products into your home then you need to pull your head out of the sand. The government is owned (largely influenced) by large corporations and money talks. The love of money is the root of ALL evil. So just because you can buy it in the store and everybody else is using it and it is ‘convenient’ – DON’T DO IT – IT’S POISON AND SHOULDN’T BE SPRAYED AROUND YOUR HOUSE AND WIPED ONTO SURFACES YOUR CHILDREN WILL TOUCH (OR PROBABLY LICK AT SOME POINT) !!!!!