Safe Cleaning Products
Safe cleaning products; being environementally friendly; product options; organizing cleaning products; phone application to test products’ chemical content.
With all the talk of the environnement and how we should be more conscious of what we use lately, it can become overwhelming to make decisions about which cleaning products to use or not. We see adds of many different products everywhere and we hear about products from influencers, coworkers, friends and family.
Are you unsure where to start when going through your household products to become more environmentally friendly? I have some tips and tricks for you for when you are ready to go through the cleaning products in your home. Here we go!
How it all started for me
I became more aware of chemicals after having our first child. As many of you know, children have very sensitive skin so as a parent, it’s important to be informed on products and what they contain. When our little one was about 6 months old, I went to a Norwex demonstration and loved the idea of cleaning 90% of our home with just water. This demonstration triggered this new train of thought in my mind with regards to cleaning products.
During the Norwex demonstration, I was attracted to the idea of the Bathroom Scrub Mitt to clean the tub with just water (insert gasp!). With our little one, at the time, now taking his bath in the bathtub, I wanted the bottom of it to be clean without having to use chemicals. That’s when I decided that I wanted less chemicals in our home.
The cleaning products I Use
To clean the house
Norwex
I went through the process of reducing chemicals gradually. As soon as we ran out of something, I just didn’t buy any of it anymore. For instance, when we ran out of our Lysol swan toilet bowl cleaner, I went ahead and started using the Norwex Blue Diamond (now known as the Bathroom cleaner). I dilluted it in a spray bottle and used it everywhere in our bathroom.
I did the same when we ran out of the store-bought laundry detergent we were using. When we ran out, I started using the Norwex Ultra Power Plus laundry powder. What I loved about it is that I could use it to clean more than just laundry.
- You can sprinkle a bit in your toilet bowl and then clean it.
- You can also add a little bit of water to it to create a paste to remove stains on clothing.
- I personally love using it to clean our stainless steel appliances. I just add it to warm water and get going.
The coolest product I’ve tried and tested with Norwex has to be the Enviro cloth (queue the sound of angels singing). That cloth cleans just about anything and everything. It can be used dry to dust or wet to clean. What’s great about it is that it can be used more than once before it needs to be thoroughly cleaned (as long as it’s rinsed properly between uses).
Bonus: when it’s used wet to clean, it cleans itself of any bacteria within the 24 hours following its use because of the micro silver embedded in it. Sooo Cool!
I’ve met my fair share of skeptics when it comes to Norwex and all that it can do with just water. If you are one of those people or know a person like this, I have this video that may convince you to believe in all that it can do.
Whip-It
We don’t only use Norwex products in our house. Recently, my husband brought this new product home. He knew what my philosophy was on cleaning products but came prepared when he introduced it to me. He received a quick crash course on the product and all it’s benefits when he was at the store and ended up buying it because of all the great things it can do and how safe it is.
When I saw the logo of the brand, it rang a bell. I looked through our laundry products (nicely stored in our Mudroom; have a look at this post to see how it’s organized) and come to find out that it’s the same brand of product that I use to remove clothing stains, which I love!
This Whip-It cleaning product that we now use in our house is great and sells for a resonnable price. Depending on the format that you buy, it can be used as is or can be diluted. It all depends on what you want to do with it and what strenght you need from it.
What I like about all the household cleaning products that we use is that they are all versatile and can be used in more than one way. Which also means that, I don’t need a whole shelf of different kinds of products to clean our house. I’m saving space and money. Win! Win!
To clean the kitchen
As far as the kitchen goes, I mainly use Norwex Kitchen cloths. They are great on counter tops. If I want to add a little scent to the kitchen, I will sometimes add a few drops of essential oils to my Norwex Kitchen cloth and clean all our counters tops. I do also use the Norwex cleaning paste that I can use to clean our glass stove top. It’s also amazing on white porcelain and white silico granite sinks such as ours.
How I store and organize my cleaning products
I keep things simple. All the house cleaning products are stored in a closet in our Mudroom/Laundry room with overstock products for our bathrooms. If I have overstock of some of our cleaning products, I put them in an overstock bin in that same closet so that they are close, accessible and visible. The kitchen cleaning products are in the kitchen, under the sink.
As you can see, the “general” cleaning supplies all fit in this cleaning caddy I got at Dollorama. That way, when I’m cleaning a bathroom, I bring the caddy with me and it has everything that I need in it. The other advantage to this method is that there are no cleaning products under the bathroom sink that could be accessed by a little one and I have more space under my bathroom sink to store other items.
There are good looking caddys at many stores such as Home Sense and Bed Bath & Beyond. I did find this cute one on Amazon. The important thing is to make sure to find one that fits your style and here is why. We can’t get out of cleaning our houses, so might as well make it fun by having products and accessories that we love.
I also have a bin for all the cleaning cloths (Norwex Enviro and Window cloths) that I like to use to clean. I grab what I need and add it to the caddy and I’m good to go!
I don’t use very many cleaning products in the kitchen. I mainly use Norwex Kitchen cloths because I only need water to clean and disinfect which is great! I do still have a few chemical products under the sink that I’d like to get rid of but all in due time.
My next goal: When I run out of the dishwasher pods I currently have, I plan to make a trip at @macarthursmarket and fill up my container with the ones they have. Like I mentioned before, one thing at a time. After that, I will be looking for an alternative to paper towel.
Disposing of your cleaning products
Depending on where you live, the way to dispose of your chemical products may vary. If you are from the Greater Moncton (NB, Canada) region you may want to have a look at this link from Eco 360. You will see that cleaning products are part of the “Special Waste – Household Hazardous Waste” section and so these have to be disposed of in a different way than all your other garbage items. Remember that Eco 360 has an application to help you determine which category your garbage can be disposed in.
If you are unsure where to find this information for your area, look up your town’s website or garbage disposal company website to see what the proper process is.
Helpful tool
Brooke from @nestingwithgrace shared this pretty cool app to check your products and see what they rank as far as containing chemicals. It’s called “Think Dirty”. After scanning an item, it will give you an overall ranking of it. It will either be Dirty, Half’n’half or Clean. From there, you have access to the product’s ingredient list and can see how each of the ingredients rank.
The application contains many products (mostly from the USA). Not all the products we use here in Canada have been ranked yet so it may happen where you scan a product and there are no results. If that’s the case, you can submit the unrecognized product fairly quickly to have them add it to the application.
The application applies to all products and not only to cleaning products so have at it and have fun scanning bottles next time you are in a store!
Cleaning Product I’ve scanned
Here is the results of the only one of my products I was able to scan with the app. As you can see, it has a great rating (3 – green).
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What do you like to use to clean your home and how do you store it? I’d love to know. Let me know in the comments below.
