Natural Alternatives - Housekeeping Like Grandma

I had the pleasure (and work!) of setting up a new kitchen at the lake house last summer and an opportunity presented itself to make some changes.  I had a large box filled with all the cleaning supplies I used to have under my old kitchen sink to unpack.  It weighed a ton for one thing, so schlepping it up from the basement I got to wondering just what all was IN this box and did I really need it all?

Since I've been making changes in eating, cooking, and shopping, this was another area, cleaning supplies, to "clean up".  How did all these cans of sprays and things become so necessary?  I don't even want to get into what's IN them - chemicals I can't pronounce!  So I did a little re-visiting the past - it really IS useful to have memories and experiences that go back to the day before all this crap was invented!

How did grandma clean the bathtub without Scrubbing Bubbles?  Poor grandma!  It's not as if we lived in filth before all these convenient cleaning supplies were created in some science lab.  The house was spotless, there were no odors that required Fabreez or carpet freshners.  Getting back to those simpler days, there weren't aisles full of this new "modern" stuff in the grocery stores either.

So I did a little research and found that baking soda has a huge range of cleaning possibilities - so does vinegar, lemon and corn starch.  Amazingly, no other chemical additives necessary!    My NEW under the sink cabinet is practically empty now - gone is the myriad of plastic bottles of spray this and that, and spray cans of more stuff!

What I remember from childhood -

We used Ivory Soap - bar soap - to wash our hair.  The "creme rinse" was vinegar diluted in a pitcher of water.  My hair was so shiny - and no, it did not smell like salad dressing!  The vinegar got rid of the soap and left you with a good pH.  Not having "products" in your hair, you didn't need to wash it that often either.  Oh the money I can save on hair products alone.  When I think of what I have probably spent over the years on all this "stuff", I seriously wonder just how necessary any of it is.  I'm not quite ready to pitch my favorite organic lavender shampoo but I sure can eliminate some products.  Ching ching!

Baking soda cleaned sinks, polished pots and pans.

Lemon can clean bread boards, cutting boards and freshen up stinky garbage disposal drains.

Fels Naptha bar soap (you can still buy this today!) is THE most excellent  pre-laundering stain remover.  It works great on grass stains, baby formula, grease, blood, you name it.  I've been using this for 40 years - never falling for the Spray N Wash or similar stain treatment products.  I swear if Fels Naptha can't get the stain out, nothing can!

When I was on-line looking for more at eartheasy.com or greenlivingideas.com
I also looked up what I might use to kill off huge piles of ants that make sand circles in my lake house yard the size of cow piles!  And guess what is non-toxic (for my dog and the lake's sake) that does it?  Are you ready for this?  GRITS.  The instant variety.  I usually leave nature to do its thing but if you walk into one of these piles, well, it's most unpleasant!  Ants eat the grits and sort of explode.  Ok, not pleasant if you are an ant, but it was a non-toxic of dealing with piles of them and the only thing that worked.

And you may think I'm nuts but I am making my own laundry detergent - and it works great!  You can find the recipes on eartheasy.com - it is worth it to me just to know what is IN the darn stuff I use anymore.  It's not a big deal since I make five gallons at a time.  I add drops of lavender essential oil - it's very subtle but quite nice.

I absolutely love those micro cloths for dusting.  Wet one, wring it out til it is barely damp and go at it.  No more dusting sprays like Pledge or whatever.

Not sure in terms of dollars and cents what I am saving - it's not really about the money although since switching to all organic everything, I'd like to think I've made up the difference.  My food bills are not higher so in my non-accountant-type mind, it's a wash.  Needless to say, my house is clean without chemicals.

Are you doing anything like this in your house?  Will you try to cut down on the chemicals you use?  Maybe starting the year off with trying some non-chemical experiments would be a great way to embrace 2012? 

(I've had technical difficulties with my blog on magnesium totally disappearing so I'm running this for the week rather than stressing out about what the heck happened here!)