Cleaner Cleaners! Mundane… I know.

Many of us clean our houses…. many not all. To most, a clean house equates to a healthier state of living. Fewer bacteria. Less dirt. Less grime. Less bubonic plague. Without cleaning, we’d be wallowing in our filth (and cat fur-- if you are like me) day in and day out. Ironic that the products we use to be healthier are actually incredibly hazardous, and they have to be to demolish all the E. coli and Streptococcus out there… or do they?

The quest for cleaner cleaners started when I regained ownership of my pair of lovebirds. Birds are very sensitive to odors, chemicals, and due to their low body weights and high metabolic rates. Canary in the coal mine anyone? For example, overheated Teflon© produces an odor which kills birds instantly. Leads me to wonder what it has done to me after repeatedly cooking my dinner in it and eating said dinner for over 10 years.

Wanting my feathered friends to live a long and healthy life, I decided to make the switch to natural cleaners. Being a recent college graduate with $18,345.39 of debt who moved to Seattle, WA on a whim without a job, the cost of my new cleaners was of some concern. Yes, a bottle of natural glass cleaner or soap only costs, on average, 50 cents to two dollars more than their conventional counterparts, but I’d rather spend that money on something a little less mundane than cleaning supplies.

It would have been very easy to slip into my old ways and opt for the cheaper variety, but as anyone who has purchased Malt-o-Meal Marshmallow Mateys instead of General Mills Lucky Charms knows, you get what you pay for –a toxic bowl full of pirates instead of the healthy, magically delicious clovers and blue moons. But, I was able to find a cost effective solution. Instead of paying the extra amount, I simply made my own using household ingredients—lemon juice, baking soda, grapefruit seed extract, olive oil, white vinegar, salt, liquid soap, and water. This allowed me to save money because these homemade cleaners cost even less than the generic variety and save my health and that of my birds.

Window cleaners, such as Windex, are either completely obsolete or easily replaceable, depending on which path you wish to take. Investment in microfiber cloths allows you to clean your windows with a little spritz of water and nothing more. Or you could make a solution using I cup vinegar to 1 gallon water. Many of you may cringe at the thought of spraying vinegar about your house because who wants to smell THAT?! I assure you, the odor goes away once it is dry. Add a little lemon juice to the mix to cut the smell. Would you rather choke down the fumes of a suspiciously blue-colored liquid with ingredients like ethylene glycol n-hexyl ether? Certainly not.

The Fantastik© risk of skin and eye irritation is completely eliminated by the use of Grapefruit Seed Extract. Simply mix 20 drops to one gallon of water and you have an all-purpose disinfectant. You can also use it as a fruit and veggie wash to remove pesticides.

Even air fresheners are dangerous—maybe not as dangerous as the odor from your warm smelly, but still. They (the air fresheners, not your toots—those are mostly methane) contain aromatic rings which smell wonderful but are known carcinogens. If you find yourself needing to mask the scent of a dead body or other yuckies, boil some water with cloves, cinnamon, orange peel, and/or ginger. Or just use some baking soda.

With these few items, I am able to clean my entire apartment—windows, tables, floors, carpets… everything. There is something to be said when I could literally open up any one of my cleaning bottles and take a drink without any serious harm coming to me – except for a repulsive taste. Would you dare to drink Windex, Fantastik, or any other commercial cleaner? I would guess not.