Three Powerful Tools for Non-Toxic Cleaning - Guest Post by Kim Steele

Keeping your house clean should have have a positive effect upon you and your family's health. But if you reach for a bottle of questionable chemicals every time there is a spill or fill the air with strange scents to cover bad odors, you are probably polluting your home more than you are cleaning it. And if you have more then 10 products in your cleaning cupboard, it is time to take a serious look at some alternatives.

Steam Cleaners

A steam cleaner can do miracles when it comes to cleaning up grime. Fill the reservoir with water, plug the machine in, and fifteen minutes later you are armed for some serious cleaning. Larger models can quickly clean a variety of floor surfaces, walls, and upholstery. There is absolutely no need to use a cleaning product when you are armed with steam.
A smaller model steam cleaner may be all that you need. Most come with a narrow nozzle attachment, that can be used to blast grime out of all the nooks and crannies that traditional cleaning just can't get to. You will be shocked to see what comes out of the joints of your toilet, the groove of your shower door, the narrow places on your stove top. You will come to understand that your home was not clean before you had a steam cleaner.


Your home will sparkle and you will not have added one iota of toxicity to your environment.

Microfiber Cleaning Cloths

If you are still using your old t-shirts or terry cloth towels to clean with, you are living in the last century. Microfiber has revolutionized the cleaning cloth. Completely free of lint, and with incredible wicking properties, a microfiber cloth can clean surfaces without cleaners. That means sparkling windows with no funny blue spray, the whole kitchen wiped down with just hot water, surfaces that shine with little effort.

Buy one, you will be hooked. Once you are convinced, buy an arsenal. They're not that expensive. Color code them - blue for the bathroom, yellow for the floors, pink for the windows, orange for the kitchen - you get the idea. That way you keep your bathroom cleaning separate from your floor cleaning, etc. Be sure to follow the laundry instructions for your cloths. Wash them without fabric softener (oh gosh, you don't use that do you?) and hang dry. If you take care of them, they will last for years. They will be your good friends.

Microfiber gives you the power to truly clean and you won't have to breath or touch or absorb anything toxic along the way.

Vinegar

If there is only one cleaning product in your cupboard, it should be white distilled vinegar. This is truly a miracle liquid and it is completely non-toxic. You could even dress your salad with it.

What does vinegar do? Just about anything! Fill a clean spray bottle with 1 cup of vinegar, complete with water and your are ready for action. This homemade cleaner can be used all over the kitchen and bathroom. It will cut grease and remove lime scale just as well as any chemical laden commercial product. It is even a disinfectant, so you can use it to clean the toilet.

Ever notice that your clothes smell like your laundry detergent? Here's why - they're not clean! They have toxic residues all over them. Add vinegar to the rinse cycle of your laundry and all traces of detergent and dirt will be rinsed away. You will then have clean clothes, perhaps for the first time in your life.

Worried about the smell? Yes vinegar is pungent. However, the odor quickly dissipates and it takes bad odors away with it. Try adding sweet orange or grapefruit essential oils to your homemade vinegar cleaner for scented cleaning power.

Once you start cleaning with vinegar, you will begin to understand its power. Soon you will be able to toss most of your commercial cleaners away. That is a huge release of toxicity from your home and life.

Clean at Last

One added advantage of arming yourself for non-toxic cleaning is that you can throw away almost everything in your cleaning closet. So not only will your home be cleaner, it will be a little less cluttered as well.

Steam cleaners, microfiber cleaning cloths, and vinegar can give you the all the power your need to clean your home without adding anything dangerous to your environment. And ridding yourself of toxicity is the only way to have a truly clean home.

Kim Steele is one of the coolest people that I've met through blogging.   She has 2 sites that are totally worth visiting.  First, her "House Cleaning How too's" site is loaded with cleaning tips and solutions to using store bought chemicals.  You can visit her cleaning sites through one of these links:

House Cleaning Howtos and Clean
ing With Vinegar

You can read about Kim and how she came to live in France.  She's a fine French Gourmet Chef with a site dedicated to taking the fear out of French cooking.  It's not very difficult.  I love having a new place to learn about new flavors to experiment when I cook. 

Visit Kim's sites, if you are anything like me, you will totally enjoy what you learn from her.