The wonder of E-cloths

Photo by Torie Jayne

They're not cheap compared to dusters but E-cloths General Purpose Cloths (£4.99) are an indispensable part of our cleaning kits here at My Green Cleaner. They're fantastic for giving a high shine to taps, kettles, toasters and really absorbent for dryingdown shower screens and mirrors. They have a towelling texture so are particularly good for wet areas.

E-cloth also do a glass and shining cloth but I prefer Deeply Clean's Ultra Gleam cloth (£2.49 from Sainsburys) which are excellent for mirrors and windows.

Tea Towel Love - Part I

Winter's well and truly arrived and it seems a long way away until Spring. Cheer yourself up with a bit of household loveliness from To Dry For. Even if you never do any actual drying up it should at least brighten up the dark days ahead.

Where to buy eco cleaning basics

Photo Credit: La Bestia Gallery

Although it's easier than it's ever been to buy natural cleaning products on the high street it's still worth checking out on-line retailers for great bargains. Summer Naturals is a great place to visit for all sorts of eco houshold items including bulk buying vinegar, bicarbonate of soda and other eco delights.

How to shine a loo..by Kim Woodburn

Kim Woodburn was on Mumsnet for a Webchat last Tuesday. I'm often asked for the best way clean below the water line of a loo and here's the Queen of Cleans definitive (and eco - yay!) answer. "Brown marks are because you are from a hard water area. Take zero, zero, zero sandpaper and bicarbonate of soda and give it a jolly good rub. Please don't let it build up - don't be lazy!". By the way the sandpaper refers to the mildest you can buy.

Photo credit: Earth Kitsch

Hanging on to summer...

It's not officially autumn until the 21st of September so I'm clinging onto summer with the help of my new organic Garden Mint and Bergamot Hand Wash (£10.50 from Neals Yard). I keep it by the kitchen sink instead of soap which is not only tidier but prettier too - I love their trademark blue bottles.

Cleaning dirt rings around a bath

A natural way to shift a dirt ring in a bath is to rub with ordinary sea salt (use it dry). Rinse with warm water and the dirt should rinse off easily.

The fairest flowers of them all

Bella and Fifi are Bristol-based florists creating bouquets using local, organic and ethically grown flowers - and their arrangements are gorgeous. Flowers are sourced from green-fingered friends and Bristol allotments, creating an earth-to-vase pesticide-free supply chain. There is something so lovely about this idea, especially for celebrating a wedding or christening event.

Exotic, air-freighted flowers from foreign climes are so readily available these days that there is something undeniable lovely about recieving a hand-picked, locally grown bouquet of peonies, sweet-peas and roses. That's to say nothing of the eco-benefits of buying local and avoiding dipping your toe into the less than rosy issues surrounding the foreign flower trade.

How Clean is your House

I'm not a big fan of the How Clean is your House series - there's seems something intrusive and voyeristic about it. But I do like Kim and Aggie and they seem to have an encylopeadic knowledge about all things cleaning. Knowing how informed they are is partly why this book (How Clean is your House - hundreds of handy tips to make your home sparkle by Kim Woodburn & Aggie MacKenzie) is such a disappointment.

Remember when you were at school and you got given homework to do along the lines of 'write 2 pages about what you did in your holidays'. And you forgot all about it until the following week so spent your morning break writing 2 pages in your BIGGEST HANDWRITING to fill the pages as quickly as you can? Well, that's what this book feels like. There are lots of headings written in large font that seem like fillers, so although it is a fairly large book the content could probably condensed into something a third of the size.

I could overlook this if the content was useful and jam-packed full of tips but it isn't. Most of the advice offered is pretty basic, such as this gem about cleaning a fireplace: 'ensure fireplaces are unlit before attempting any kind of cleaning. If the fire is alight you could easily burn yourself, or inadvertently set fire to your clothing'. Mmmmm.

After a while the pager headings start to irritate too: 'How clean is your Bed/Wardrobe/Bathroom/Bidet etc etc' and failed to hold my interest.

I've struggled writing this review because I wanted to champion Kim and Aggie, but this book really was a big disappointment. I know they've written lots of other books so I'll have a look for another of their titles and do a review on that but in the meantime my advice would be to give this book a miss.

Denture tablets as loo cleaners

OK, I'm not sure if this is actually an eco-thing judging from the ingredients list but I heard somewhere that denture tablets were great t0 clean toilet bowls and I couldn't resist giving it a go.

I dropped a couple of denture tablets into the toilet bowl and left them overnight. The next morning I used a toilet brush to clean the pan. The tablets seemed to lift some of the stains but the results weren't spectacular and certainly no easier than my usual eco-loo cleaner.

I'll leave denture tablets to their original purpose!

My Green Cleaner role model

My Green Cleaner was almost called Eco Cinderella but it got the thumbs-down in an informal poll amongst my male friends (most of them couldn't remember that she'd done cleaning before being discovered by her Prince Charming). Whatever, she's still my cleaning hero! I'm pretty sure she was an eco cleaner, what with that natural-bristle broom she was always carrying around with her and her birdy friends.

Vacuuming scents

I've already mentioned how much I love the smell of lavender and here's another way to keep your home naturally scented. Put 5 drops of lavender essential oil onto a cotton wool ball and place inside the vacuum bag. When vacuuming the lavender scent will be spread around your home leaving it smelling lovely. If lavender isn't your thing, other good oils to use are Ylang Ylang and Orange.

Essential cleaning kit

The humble toothbrush is an essential tool for any domestic cleaning kit. They're great for getting into awkward nooks and crannys that you can't reach with a sponge or cloth. They're particularly useful for keeping the base of taps sparkly, and are especially useful for bathrooms that always seem to have inaccesible grooves and corners. I colour code my cleaning toothbrushes, - blues for bathroom and yellow kitchens. After use it's a good idea to run then under some boiling water to refresh and keep germ-free.

Whatever you do, don't get them mixed up with your proper toothbrush - yuk!

Sweet smelling kitchen

Boil a few slices of lemon in a saucepan of water to hide the smell of burnt cooking (and then get a takeway...)

Sliding drawers

Use solid beeswax to fix stiff furniture drawers. Apply a thin coat of beeswax to the runners and reapply as needed. Beeswax can also be used along the side of sash windows to help them open and close smoothly if they are getting stuck.

Oh for lovely soft hands

All that scrubbing, polishing and shining means that housework hands take a bit of a bashing . I've tried and tested tons of hand-creams and top of my list is Weleda's Seabuckthorne Hand Cream £4.95 (http://www.weleda.co.uk/). It's smells lovely and is great at the end of a hard days work in the house or garden.

Little fluffy towels

Towels have a habit of discolouring and becoming hard with use and this is particularly so if, like here in Bristol, you live in a hard water area.

Borax is great for freshening up tired towels and keeping them nice and fluffy. For a one-off treatment, add the towels to a bucket containing warm water and a couple of scoops of Borax and soak for 2 hours. This treatment will also help to get rid of stains and musty smells.

To keep towels in tip top condition swap half your washing powder with Borax and wash as usual, using a warm (not hot) wash. As with nappies, avoid using fabric conditioner as they coat the towels with silicone and reduce their absorbency.

Zita, patron saint of housework

I've just discovered Saint Sitha the patron saint of housework.

Sitha was born in Italy and worked for 48 years as a maid for a wealthy Italian family. Sitha is also the patron saint for people who have lost their keys :-)

Oops! There goes my red wine.....

Natural Stain Remover by Angela Martin is a slip of a book but really useful to have to hand if you're accident prone or have children.

In the first section the author lists 12 products that form the basis of most of the tips/recipes contained further in the book. There is also a brief section containing cleaning advice for each room, such as how to make furniture polish using olive oil, white vinegar and essential oil.

The most useful part of the book, though, is the chapter titled 'A - Z of Stain Removing and Cleaning', which has tips on lifting stains for pretty much anything you can think of.

Lovely eco business cards

Hooray for new business cards! My Green Cleaner no longer has to scrabble for pen and paper when people ask for our details as we now have these lovely cards designed by Comedia Design. My Green Cleaner tries to be as sustainable as possible and we thought long and hard about whether business cards were necessary. After trialling working without them it became clear that they do make life a lot easier and would really help spread the eco-cleaning message.

We have just received them and they look fab! They are as eco-friendly as we could find using vegetable based ink and printed onto 100% recycled, FSC certified card.

Freshen-up your washing machine

Washing machines can start to emit bad odours which often has people reaching for the bleach. The natural solution to this is vinegar and baking soda:

1. Start with an empty machine and programme it for the hottest cycle
2. When the machine has filled with water add 3/4 pint of vinegar and 1/4 pint of baking soda
3. When the water starts to drain skip forward to the spin cycle
4. Once the spin cycle has finished wipe down the drum
5. Run a complete cold wash to finish
   

My (almost) favourite smell

Synthetic plug-in air freshners are on the increase and despite their natural names, evocative of woodlands and meadows they usually contain manufactured chemicals as well as being a health risk to asthma and allergy sufferers.

When I was expecting my son, Ziggy, I got seriously into lavender. I had lavender bath salts, lavender bags in my drawers and lavender growing in my garden. Ever since I have loved the smell of lavender as it reminds me the excitement of waiting for his arrival. But there is a serious new contender for my favourite smell and that's freesia. My lovely friend Tash bought me a freesia scented candle made by True Grace and the smell is just mmmmmmm. True Grace candles are hand-made in the UK from 100% natural wax using natural fragrances. They also sell refills saving money and packing and are the eco answer to a sweet smelling home.

Cleaning windows naturally

I love having sunshine streaming through my windows. At least I do now that my windows are nice and shiny - I'm almost too embarassed to post the 'before' picture above but that really is how dirty they were! I used to spend ages using shop-bought window cleaners but they always left smears and smudges. This year I'm using vinegar and newspaper and the results have been amazing. Fill a spray bottle with some water and vinegar and then wipe down with a newspaper (a microcloth works brilliantly too). Our windows are now gleaming and it's really cheap and easy to do. Use the same solution for mirrors and glass cabinets.

Re-using baby food jars

A lot of our clients have babies so here's an idea for re-using those cute little jars that baby food comes in. All you need is a baby jar and lid, a small circle of fabric and some rafia. If you're in Bristol, Evangelina's in St Nicholas' market is great for rafia and ribbon and there's also's a brilliant old-fashioned sweet shop called Treasure Island for stocking up on sweets.

Firstly, make sure that the jar is clean. You can soak the jar in hot water to remove the label but if it doesn't come off completely use vinegar. Then fill with sweets, replace the lid and tie on the fabric with raffia. I made about 50 of these for the children attending my daughter's naming ceremony and decorated them with a photograph.

Kind planet cleaning

Many people switch to natural cleaning due to the health risks associated with having toxic chemicals in their home. But the products we use have a much longer life span than just within our home, working their way through the water cycle and ending up in the environment.

The attached article from Junior magazine references a study undertaken by Birmingham and Warwick university in which soil contaminated with an ingredient used in many cleaning products also contained high concentrations of drug-resistant bacteria. The conclusion was that the growth of drug-resistant bacteria is triggered by chemicals used in houshold products, which has the knock-on effect of medicines no longer being able to treat dangerous diseases.

Using natural products is not only kinder on your home and cleaner, but on the planet too.

Vinegar - not just for chips!

I love a good splash of malt vinegar on my fish and chips, but the uses of vinegar extends to more than flavouring this British seaside favourite.

It's a well-known fact that vinegar is great for cleaning windows, and Vinegar - 1001 Practical Uses, by Margaret Briggs, cover this and lots of not so well-known uses too. With a useful intro on different types of vinegar and the various methods of production the book is pretty much an exhaustive list of the many, many uses of this humble product. It's split into chapters such as 'In the Laundry' and I guarantee there'll be something in this book that surprises you - I never knew that adding a teaspoon of vinegar to the water makes hard-boiled eggs easier to peel!

My Green Cleaner loves...

...this drawing by the talented Shannon Lamden, creator of the Aunty Cookie brand http://www.auntycookie.com. Shannon creates ink drawings featuring a range of characters posing with their hobby paraphenalia (others include quilting, shopping and emboidery) alongside her lovely handprinted fabrics.

I think this little lady would be very at home here, overseeing all the Green Cleaners in the My Green Cleaner office.

A good reason to go green

I prefer to use the carrot rather than stick when it comes to flying the flag for ecological cleaning, but sometimes highlighting the nasties in non-eco products has more impact than extolling the virtues of lemon, lavender and vinegar!

And so to this extract from Easy Living magazine. The three health and fertility experts all agree that household chemicals can have a harmful impact on fertility. Two of them refer to perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), which are commonly found in food packaging and pesticides but can also be found in shampoo and household cleaners. To prevent exposure to PFCs avoid any products that contain fluoro or perfluoro in their ingredient list.

Hooray for sunshine!

After months of having washing draped over radiators during the winter, I love being able to hang out the washing now that Spring has arrived. This is especially good if you use real nappies as the sun helps bleach out any stains. My nappies are being used on baby No 2 and here are my tips on keeping them soft and smelling fresh.

• Every now and then add 1/2 cup of distilled vinegar to the final rinse cycle.
• Add a few drops of lavender oil in the fabric softener drawer to make them smell lovely.
• If nappies are hard and stiff after washing, add some bi-carbonate of soda in with the detergent to soften them up again.
• Every 6 months do a wash without any detergent. If you notice bubbles during the wash then detergent is still lingering in the nappies, which can be an irritant for your baby. Instead of powder use a tablespoon of soda crystals in your machine and continue to do this until the machine cycle runs clear.

Eco-cleaning inspiration

I admit to being a fan of both the publisher and the author of this book. CICO Books create titles with fab photography and if the photos in this book don't tempt you to try cleaning without chemicals then nothing will. Author Christina Strutt, (founder of clothing/interiors shop Cabbages and Roses) provides traditional hints and tips on how to keep your house clean, as well as advice on wider topics such as gardening, home-made beauty products and jam recipes. Some of the tips are a bit obvious (there's a whole page on how to sew on a patch) but on the whole, this is a book to inspire any aspiring eco housekeeper.

Bicarbonate of Soda

Bicarbonate of Soda (AKA Sodium Bicardonate or Baking Soda) is an essential ingredient in any eco cleaner's kit bag. I decant mine into a Kilner jar to prevent it getting damp (and to make it look prettier). Here are my top 5 uses:

1. Carpet Cleaning - sprinkle onto your carpet and leave for 40 minutes before vacuuming to refresh your carpets
2. Tile Cleaner - mix with water and use on kitchen or bathroom tiles to scour away dirt and grease
3. Sink Freshner - pour a large spoonful down the sink and then follow with a cupful of boiling water to keep drains fresh
4. Stain Remover - to clean tea-stained cups fill with a mixture of bicarb and water and leave to stand.
5. And Relax.....after all that cleaning sprinkle into your bath to make your skin lovely and soft.

Eco-cleaning up there with Michelle Obama

We've always known natural cleaning products were healthy, cleaned brilliantly and smelt delicious but we never really thought we were fashionable as well.

iiiiiiiiiiiiiii

But here's eco cleaning getting a mention in the Style magazine of the Sunday Times no less! Number Two on their 'barometer of style' just under Michelle Obama.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Paris, Milan, New York, here we come.....

Lemon Dusters

I've just finished making some lemon dusters using some old pillowcases cut to duster size. It's the first time I've made them so I'll report back as to whether they are great to use. In the meantime if you'd like to make some here is the recipe.

• Mix equal parts distilled vinegar and water (I used 200ml of each to make the 5 jars above).
• Add 2 drops of olive oil
• Soak some old (clean!) dusters, pillowcases or whatever you have to hand, in the solution and wring out.
• Roll up each duster with pieces of lemon rind in the middle
• Store in a jam jar with added lemon peel until needed.