March 23, 2011

Cleaning products

Wednesday, March 23, 2011 Posted by Ryan 4 comments
I don't use a lot of commercial cleaning products and totally jumped on the hippie bandwagon of cleaning primarily with vinegar and baking soda. I've tried the no-poo thing for a month, but it didn't work for me. Recently I've decided to try an make my own hair conditioner and lip balm and peppermint foot lotion. I haven't actually made any yet, but I have rounded up some of the harder to find ingredients. Now I just have to make a batch.

I haven't completely abandoned the cleaning isle at the grocery store however. I did discover that you can refill the foaming hand soap dispensers with any soap you like. Just dilute the soap with water. It really cuts down on how much soap you use, especially if you have anyone in your house that likes to double or triple pump. I've been using Dr. Bronner's Peppermint castile soap in the kitchen and a lavender castile soap made by Seattle Organics. It seems that you're supposed to use a 3:1 or 4:1 water to soap ratio, but I just eyeball it and probably err on the side of more water.


I saw today that Method has a new dish washing soap pump bottle. I buy the big jug of Kirkland dishwashing soap and refill an old grocery store sized bottle to keep on the counter. But the Method bottle is pretty, and the pump controls how much soap comes out. It seems crazy to pay 3.99 for a bottle of dish washing soap, but I only have to buy it once to get the pretty bottle and refill it with what ever i want. The reviews are mixed on the pump bottle, but I really want it to work. We'll see.

4 comments:

Kathryn said...

OMG, we have that exact soap pump! We appropriated it from Heather's boss when it was down to the last 1/4 inch! We LOVE it! We've refilled it with tons of other soaps.
We used to have glass bottles with drizzlers, like you would use for olive oil, and we would use those for watery soap.. but with Esther we just got lazy and wanted a pump. Ideally we'll go back to the glass bottles some day... eventually.
Oh, also, if you don't wanna do the no-poo but want a more natural shampoo option, try Keys Soaps. I've been using their Mangrove shampoo for two years now and I LOVE it. We just started using their Galleyon spearmint soap and those two are the only thing we'll use for Esther. They're not actually soap, they're essential oils and come in foaming bottles, which you can also refill with their other castile based products. We like Windsurfer for everyday soap as well. They're generally rated very well by the Environmental Working Group, so that makes me happy. Heather just got their dry shampoo to try for in between days, but she hasn't had a chance to try it yet.

Kathryn said...

Was just thinking of you. Why are you not on Facebook? We're totally fun over there!

hope all is well!

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