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.

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.

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!

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.