Day 19: Cleaning out the Cleaning Products

The Task:  Today I'm decluttering and making cleaning day simper by only surrounding myself and my family with products that I feel are safe and friendly!

Over the last year or so I have become increasingly careful about the products we use in our home.  But for some reason I was still hanging on to some commercial cleaning products, even though I refuse to use them!  (Please don't call Hoarders, I promise I'm getting rid of them!)

The Why?  I've read lists of most dangerous cleaners in our homes and some of the products I have in my cleaning basket were on those lists....but instead of ditching them I held on to them"just in case".   I have a can of a certain bathroom cleaner (hint, it rhymes with bubbing scrubbles) that I haven't sprayed in over a year.   What just-in-case situation was I saving it for? Just in case vinegar becomes illegal? Just in case I start to miss that burning sensation I get in my throat when I use it?  Just in case of what exactly?

The How:
 All my half used cans of  commercial cleaners have been boxed up and are ready for the next hazardous waste collection day in my community.

I now have a total of six cleaning products that meet all of my cleaning needs:

• a gentle dishsoap (I use this, in warm water, to clean almost any surface: cabinets, walls, the inside of my refrigerator.  And it's super for cleaning bathtubs.)
• vinegar (I put a splash in my mop water. I mix it half and half with water for windows. I use it full strength in a spray bottle to clean toilets)
• baking soda (Great for cleaning the kitchen sink)
• Peroxide (I mix with baking soda to make a paste for heavy duty cleaning, like cooked on stove top gunk and dirty grout lines)
• Rubbing Alcohol (for cleaning the microfiber sofas!)
• Tea tree oil (for disinfecting)

On top of being great cleaners in their own right, every one of these products has another use around the house as well.  Meaning less bottles of junk stuffed under my sinks and in my cleaning basket.   Yay for multi-purpose items!

{By the way, I wrote a guest post for a friends blog a couple months ago about how I clean my whole house without nasty chemicals.  If you want more info on how I do my chores using the 6 household products mentioned above, check it out!}

The Verdict:
If everything we knew about cleaning came from television commercials, it would be easy to think that we need a specific product to clean every surface in our home. Tub and shower sprays, toilet cleaner, counter spray, window and glass cleaner, specialty products for leather, stainless steel, stove tops,ovens and floors!  But really cleaning can be so much simpler than that.  People had clean homes long before grocery stores devoted whole aisles to cleaning products and television commercials started telling us that we could buy magical cleanliness in a can!

In my opinion, many of those commercial cleaners are often just selling us an illusion of clean.  Sure, a heavy duty spray on cleaner can make our tubs sparkle, but if it leaves our bathrooms coated in toxic chemicals,  that is not my definition of clean!

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