Books: The Naturally Clean Home

Over 100 Safe and Easy Herbal Formulas for Nontoxic Cleaners

Facts

Author: Karyn Siegel-Maier
ISBN: 1-58017-194-X
Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Storey Publishing

Did you know that the air in your home might have chemical contamination levels 70 times greater than outdoor air? And the culprits are lurking right under your kitchen sink. It’s time to clean up your act!

Learn how easy it is to make your own safe, nontoxic, effective alternatives to commercial cleaning products by combining the antibacterial and antiseptic properties of herbs and essential oils with other natural ingredients such as baking soda, vinegar, borax, and lemon juice. The Naturally Clean Home includes tips and formulas for freshening every room in the house:

• Wash the dishes with eucalyptus (pg. 40)
• Restore the rug with rosemary (pg. 111)
• Soften fabric with lemon (pg. 81)
• Clean the oven with orange (pg. 42)
• Scrub the sink with lavender (pg. 63)
• Polish wood with raspberry leaves (pg. 92)
• Flush the toilet clean with tea tree oil (pg. 65)
• Wax the car with beeswax (pg. 151)

Clean and Let Live
If your household is anything like mine, your Sunday mornings probably include the typical array of housekeeping activities, including washing, mopping, and polishing. There are probably a half-dozen things you’d rather be doing, but in the end it feels great to know the house is sparkling clean and good space to be in. But is it? The grime and germs may have been whisked away, but something more ominous may have been left in their place – hazardous wastes. As you will soon learn, herbs can provide you with cleaning products that are just as effective, safe, and considerably less expensive than the products you may be using now.

Household Hazards
You’re probably not very comfortable with thinking of your home as akin to a toxic dump site. But if you consider how hazardous wastes are defined, you’ll get a different picture of the nature of the “ordinary” substances used every day in your home. Basically, any substance that is poisonous, carcinogenic, corrosive, reactive, flammable, or in some other way injurious to animals or humans is considered hazardous. Just like industrial hazardous materials, household chemicals possess one or more of these characteristics and require special handling. The difference is that too often the health risks of common household products are inadequately communicated or expressed in vague terms.

Learn to Decipher Labels
Exactly what chemical agents are being added to cleaning products remains a mystery to most of us, partly because many formulas are treated as closely guarded trade secrets, and partly because of inadequate labeling standards.

You might be shocked to learn that manufacturers are not required to list specific ingredients on the labels of their products. To make matters worse, a study done by the New York Poison Control Center revealed that 85 percent of product labels carried insufficient warnings regarding immediate and long-term health risks. Manufacturers are also not required to list inert ingredients, even though they could comprise up to 99 percent of the product’s composition. This means that you, the consumer, are left out of the loop, without access to reliable information that would help you make an informed decision about a product.

There are labeling standards in effect of course, but they are a bit tricky, at least for the consumer. Suppose you were to come across a product at your grocery store with a label containing the word “nontoxic.” You could feel pretty good about tossing that one in your cart because it must be safe, right? Not necessarily. There is no federal regulatory definition of nontoxic. In reality, it is merely an advertising word.

There are other terms used on product labels that are vague or designed to misinform, such as “biodegradable.” What exactly does the manufacturer mean when it claims the product to be biodegradable? A better question to ask is how long will it take to biodegrade? Plutonium, for instance, is definitely biodegradable, but in a span of a thousand years. Once again, the well-meaning shopper ends up comparing apples to oranges when it comes to understanding cleaning product labels.

The key to buying cleaning products off the shelf is to strive to find those with labels that state the product is readily biodegradable and made from natural, renewable sources such as plant extracts and oil-based soaps.

With the all-natural cleaners you’ll learn to make, eventually your supply of cleaning products will diminish in number from dozens down to a mere handful – and they will be perfectly safe for you, your family, and the environment.

Volume Discounts on Books

• 5 - 9 = 5% off
• 10 - 14 = 10% off
• 15 - 19 = 15% off
• 20 - 24 = 20% off
• 25 - 29 = 25% off
• 30 - 34 = 30% off
• 35 - 39 = 35% off
• 40+ = 40% off
• Books may be mixed and matched

Customer Reviews

Please, take a moment and comment on this product.