Try These Non-Toxic, Far Less Expensive
And Frankly Better For You Alternatives

Before we present you with some of the wonderfully numerous alternatives to toxic home cleaning products, let’s talk briefly about surfactants and detergents, or as we like to call them, soap. In the simplest possible terms, surfactants make water “wetter” by reducing the surface tension of the water, while the detergents chemically bond with and loosen soil from the surface being cleaned, allowing the “wetter” water to flush it all away. All soaps are essentially made from fats (animal or vegetable) or oils (vegetable or petroleum) with an alkali once, primarily wood ash lye, but they’re usually synthetic these days - that neutralizes the fatty acids to produce, well, soap. Sodium soaps are made using caustic soda - sodium hydroxide - for the alkali. This makes a “hard” soap. The other alkali, caustic potash - potassium hydroxide - makes a potassium or “soft” soap, the sort of thing you’d find in liquid hand soaps, laundry detergents and household cleaning products. Water itself is a potent cleaner, but soap, in minimal quantities, just allows it to work better. Let’s just say that a little soap can go a long way.

When you’re shopping for a cleaning product, the thing to remember is “less is more.”

Look for readily biodegradable (i.e., breaks down within 30 to 90 days) vegetable-based surfactants such as coconut, hemp, palm or corn oils. They won’t irritate your skin, and they do the same job as their scarier, synthetic toxic counterparts.

If you’re looking for a good de-greaser and all-purpose cleaner, check out d-limonene, a citrus-based solvent from orange peel extract. Combined with vegetable-based surfactants and additives like grapefruit seed extract, it’ll tackle the toughest jobs, including mildew. A little goes a very long way, and it biodegrades quickly.

Who needs ammonia when a dilution of white distilled vinegar works even better on glass and stovetops?

Sodium bicarbonate baking soda - makes a great scouring powder, and to clean your oven, just add salt and some liquid soap.

Why spray furniture polish around the house when olive, walnut or lemon oils seal and protect wood surfaces so much better, without all that synthetic wax?

And finally, hydrogen peroxide, borax and sodium percarbonate washing soda will whiten and brighten clothes and fabrics and kill mold and mildew as well as bleach. In various dilutions, you can use them all over your home, from the kitchen to the bathroom.

With a little time and effort on your part, you can save ridiculous amounts of money by making your own formulas at home, using some of the ingredients listed here. By adding plant or herbal essential oils to a neutral plant-based soap, you can forego the dubious pleasures of those mysterious chemical fragrances and create your own customized, naturally fragrant cleaners! And it’s cheap!