Re: Natural Cleaning Recipes
 

FWIW, I find apple cider vinegar smell to be more agreeable. . .

Re: Natural Cleaning Recipes
 

Bonnie - Zopte soap is impossible to find around here, but our local grocery store carries Fels Naptha soap in the laundry soap aisle...it's in a bar. It does nicely and smells REALLY good.

And vinegar loses its odor when mixed with baking soda, so you can toss both in to your laundry for fabric softener. This works esp. well if you hang laundry out. :tu

Re: Natural Cleaning Recipes
 

So where can I buy washing soda? I've looked in the laundry section of all my grociery stores and both Super WalMarts. I wasn't able to find Zote, but did find some Zels....

Re: Natural Cleaning Recipes
 

Our grocery store has washing soda...it's in a big yellow box in amongst the other laundry boosters, like Borax. Did you ask them? I asked Wal-Mart about Zote and they told me they don't carry it anymore. :shrug

Re: Natural Cleaning Recipes
 

Is there anything I could use instead of washing soda? I can't find it ANYWHERE (I've looked in every grocery store in town and WalMart!) I've looked online, but I hate to pay shipping more than the cost of the actual item, yk? :think

Re: Natural Cleaning Recipes
 

OK, I'm hooking up to this thread now with my own dumb questions. ;)

It is necessary to put the EO's in the various recipes? Does it do anything in regards to how well the product cleans, or is it just to mask the vinegar smell? I have some of the ingredients on-hand already (if I can use Seventh Generation dishwashing liquid for "detergent") except for the EO's.

Just as an impulse purchase when I was at Wild Oats last week, I got a bar of Dr. Bronner's peppermint castille soap. I'm assuming that the castille soap listed in these recipes is liquid (which they had also, but I didn't get). So...what do I use this bar soap for? :scratch

Re: Natural Cleaning Recipes
 

They do both (mask vinegar smells AND do other stuff.) :grin All essential oils have different purposes. For example, some are anti-bacterial, some are anti-fungal, some are anti-viral, etc...and most of them have multiple purposes. You'll notice Tea Tree Oil is in a lot of recipes...it is really good when cleaning because of all the action it takes against so many "bad" things (like germs, etc). And lavendar is great also but is more "gentle" and also has a very soft and beautiful scent. I'll let someone else explain the details but that is just a short (and probably not very good) :O explanation.

Re: Natural Cleaning Recipes
 

Yes, both Tea Tree and Lavender have anti-bac properties, plus, they make the vinegar smell better :P

Re: Natural Cleaning Recipes
 

This is a really dumb question, but I have a front loader and I would like to try the laundry soap recipe, but I was under the impression that you cannot use powder in a front-loader? Thanks!
Jenn

Re: Natural Cleaning Recipes
 

I use BioKleen laundry powder in my front loader all the time. I just use a tiny bit. The problem with the front loader is that the suds can get to be too much. I don't have any homemade laundry powder recipes, but you can leave out or reduce the sudsing agents and that should help. Or, if you make a "regular" batch, just do what other laundry powder instructions tell you to do and use about 1/4 of what you would use in a top load machine.

Re: Natural Cleaning Recipes
 

I was just reading up on this for myself in a book I have by by Annie Berthold-Bond. I will see if I can find the links to some of the recipes online, if not I'll just post what I can recall...
Ants dislike peppermint, so the recipe was to make a mix of water with a little bit of castille peppermint soap in a spray bottle (sorry don't remember the measurements) and to spray this along the baseboards where the ants are coming in and don't rinse off.
It also had a recipe for making your own ant bait with water, borax and sugar. http://www.care2.com/channels/solutions/home/3
It also said that ants dislike ground cloves... so I am going to get some in bulk at the food co-op and sprinkle it around the outside of my house to see if it keeps them out.
And because ants dislike mint/peppermint, the book suggested planting mint outside your house. I'll be doing this next year as I have had such an issue with ants this summer. Ugh!!

Re: Natural Cleaning Recipes
 

If you are breastfeeding I would be careful with peppermint as it can reduce your amount of milk.

Re: Natural Cleaning Recipes
 

We've been battling ants. . . Been using small remedies inside, because just a few sugar ants don't bother me. However, it had gotten worse, so we used ant bait. BIG MISTAKE. Do NOT use ant bait in your house! We ended up getting an exterminator and learned alot.

Most ants you see in the house actually have their homes outside.

Do NOT use bait inside. Bait outside. Poison inside.

Cut back any plants that are touching the walls. (For us, that meant majorly trimming our hibiscus--ants use that as a route into the house.)

Ants like sugar, yeast, and one other type of food. They need all of them. Be careful of crumbs.

Ants eat caulking. Do you see caulking gone in your kitchen or bathroom? Ants love it. It's like candy.

Re-caulk areas that need it with silicone caulk.

Spraying with vinegar/peppermint helps some. Not a lot. But I use vinegar in a spray bottle for cleaning, so I do it anyway. It won't get rid of the ants, but it may discourage them a bit.

If you buy poison/bait, plan to use the poison inside only at a time in which you can take the kids out for several hours. (We didn't, we regretted it. The professional exterminators stuff was less toxic to our family, the OTC stuff was moreso.)

Re: Natural Cleaning Recipes
 

This works great against ants of all sorts (they have been killer this year - last year was fruit flies, this year, ants!), and it is safe to use around children, pets and food. :tu You have to re-apply it now and then, but it is worth it because it really does work.

http://www.safeinsecticide.com/

I agree with bait inside - it just draws them from my experience. :shrug

Re: Natural Cleaning Recipes
 

Good to know!!