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!