Cleaning around home...

Wednesday, October 6th

Today I cleaned the shower and toilet. When I opened the cupboard, to my dismay most of our cleaning products were not present. Then I remembered that I had not put them on the shopping list after I used the last of them. This presented the perfect opportunity to experiment with some home-made cleaning solutions.
 

It may not be a very clear photo,

but you can see bicarb soda/vinegar paste
works wonders on the dirty shower.



I had heard previously that you can clean almost your entire house using simply bicarb soda and vinegar. So I googled 'how to clean with bicarb soda' and found a great website named The Green Store. It lists all the different uses and recipes for cleaning with bicarb. 

First I cleaned the shower, paying particular attention to the grout between the tiles. The recipe for grout cleaning is 2 parts bicarb soda to 1 part vinegar. This is then smothered onto the tile grout with a toothbrush (luckily I saved my old one for such a purpose!), left to sit for 5-10 minutes, and then washed off with warm water. I washed the mix off whilst I had a shower, so the water had two uses.

The paste worked extremely well, and was actually less labour intensive than regular cleaning products. In addition, I can rinse it off whilst I shower because it does not have harmful chemicals, and therefore saves water.

Then I moved onto the toilet. The recipe is very similar, yet I put some extra vinegar and water to make a runny paste. This made it easier to pour around the toilet bowl. The mixture sat in the bowl for a few minutes, which was followed by a quick scrub of the toilet brush, and VOILA!



After



Before
(disgusting)

It worked so well. The big test will be how long it stays clean. As I find this is the biggest variance between toilet cleaning products in general. The before and after photos are dramatic. I am a little ashamed of the state of the before toilet... I was saving the grime to create a greater contrast!