Country Living on a Hill: Healthy Tuesdays- Natural Cleaning Products series

I have decided to change things up a bit for March. For Healthy Tuesdays, I am going to focus on the changes I have made in how I clean my house, using natural cleaning products and how they work for me. Wednesdays are going to be focused on slow cooker recipes- some new and some oldies but goodies from here on a hill. Hopefully both series will be informative as well as fun.....let me know what you think.

When I first decided to make changes to my life (diet and medication for fibro) I honestly did not think about making changes to my cleaning products. However, one day while cleaning I realized how nasty my cleaning products smelled. They were burning my nose and giving me a headache. Was this really the only way to clean? Another concern was that my pug follows me around constantly and even if I close the bathroom door when I am cleaning, she is plastered against it on the other side. The fumes were surely getting to her as well. Poor little thing-- what could these harmful fumes doing to her?

I decided some changes were needed but what could I use? I found that vinegar does a good job at killing germs and when mixed with baking soda it foams up and makes a good paste to scrub sinks and tubs. So this is where I started. We have horrible hard water so even the harshest commercial products often didn't work all that well. I have found that while the more natural cleaning products require a bit more elbow grease, they do work just as effectively as the harsh chemicals (at least for us they do).

White vinegar does have a very strong smell that can become a bit heavy when you use a lot of it. While I was digging through some of my old recipes, I came across a recipe for scented vinegar to use in cleaning. I decided to give it a try to see if it would help cut down on some of that biting vinegar smell. I absolutely LOVE my lavender vinegar (here is how you can make your own). As you can see, I did try the orange vinegar that is all over Pinterest but it didn't even come close to my lavender vinegar.

No matter how much lavender vinegar I make, it never lasts me through the winter. So what I have started doing instead is to fill a squirt bottle with half white vinegar, fill the rest with water and then add 4-5 drops of essential oils. I usually use lemon or lemongrass (I have tried cloves and cinnamon but I just cannot get into those scents cleaning my house!) but any essential oil that you love the scent of would work. If you added tea tree oil it would give it even more germ killing properties but the smell isn't very pleasant (more on tea tree oil later this month).

Since I have started on this natural cleaning kick, I have added some additional products to my arsenal which I will discuss in later posts in March so stay tuned!