The Real Clean

Whether you’re a committed spring cleaner with the requisite six-week game plan to attack every corner of your home before summer arrives, or just manage to get the kids’ winter clothes out of the front hall in time for bathing suit season (never mind wiping down the walls, defrosting the freezer and reorganizing the closets by colour and type of clothing), there’s one thing we’re thinking we can all clean up this spring.

We’re talking about the toxic chemicals in our everyday cleaning solutions. After years of looking at those skeleton symbols on the labels, we’re asking ourselves why we really need products that are corrosive to the eyes and skin, cause illness when inhaled or swallowed, or contain carcinogenic chemicals to keep our houses clean.

However, it turns out that you can get the same clean results from some totally safe ingredients most of us already have in our kitchens—vinegar and baking soda—so we’ve got a few recipes for your spring cleaning.

Floor Cleaner
Mix one gallon of water with 1/2 cup vinegar in a bucket to mop or scrub floors (oh, the glamour).

Tub and Tile Cleaners
Scrub surfaces with baking soda slightly moistened with water. To remove mineral deposits around faucets, cover deposits with strips of paper towels soaked in vinegar. Let sit for one hour and wipe.

Toilet Bowl Cleaner
Sprinkle baking soda around the inside of the toilet bowl and scrub with toilet brush. Add some white vinegar into the bowl (removes rings) and let sit for a few minutes before cleaning with the brush.

All-Purpose and Window Cleaner
Pour a half-and-half mixture of water and white vinegar into a refillable spray bottle. Lose the ammonia (it’s highly toxic to aquatic animal friends), keep the shine.

Sticker Remover
To get rid of stickers, decals and other gummy residues, (the bane of every mom’s existence) rub a few coats of vinegar on the area and allow to soak. Then wipe off with a wet cloth to remove the sticky substance.

Carpet Odor Remover
Sprinkle entire carpet with baking soda. Let sit 15 minutes, or overnight for serious odors, then vacuum. Fresh air is the air you can’t smell, after all.

If you need a little system to get you started on saving the environment and saving money too, the Eco-Me Home set ($34) includes all the containers and mixers you need (just add ingredients from your kitchen such as vinegar and baking soda) to mix up your own batches of essential oil-scented (the oil is a natural antiseptic and anti-bacterial) Eco-Me All Purpose Spray Cleaner, Eco-Me Wood Polish Spray Cleaner and Eco-Me Scrub Cleanser.

Still prefer to buy versus make? Look out for the Green Seal certification mark on household cleaners, which have been tested against a strict set of environmental standards, when you are replacing your old stand-bys with something greener.

So when it comes to clean, you know you’re going to make a sandwich for little Jack on that countertop one day. So why not start cleaning it with something that’s actually safe for him to eat?

Eco-Me Home Kit available at Goneshopping.ca