Cheap and Simple Cleaning

If you were to do what manufacturers would have you believe, you would be buying a different cleaning product for every different task.  A quick search on a DIY superstore’s website brought up 180 different cleaning products.  I mean, how many different types of dirt do we have?

I say spend your money on something that gives you pleasure and don’t waste it on stuff you don’t need, particularly stuff that contains dubious chemicals that affect your health and end up in the environment for ever.

Apart from washing up liquid and laundry soap, 99% of my cleaning is done with just three products:

Vinegar

Pierre d’argent cleaner

Soda crystals

White vinegar – magic stuff.  Buy the cheap distilled white or pickling vinegar from the supermarket.  In France it costs me less than 1 euro a litre.  It’s one of the most versatile and economical products you can buy.

For example:

Add a cupful to pail of water for mopping the floors

It’s great for descaling - around taps, shower heads, etc.  Soak a piece of kitchen paper in vinegar and wrap it around the scale and leave overnight.  Or leave it in the kettle overnight to descale it.  Pour into the toilet and leave overnight to get rid of scale.

Use it diluted in water to wash mirrors and glass

See my previous post for a quick way to clean your microwave and disinfect your sponge at the same time.

It’s an excellent disinfectant for cleaning toilets.

Take a look at the multitude of uses listed on Vinegar Tips.  I learned a few more myself.

The next product I use a lot of for all those cleaning jobs that vinegar doesn’t cover, is Pierre d’argent.  This is a clay and soap-based product with a lovely lemony scent.  It’s a natural and biodegradable cleaner and is extremely effective.  Here in France I buy it from DIY shops, garden centres and healthfood stores, but after a quick search on the Net I found several places in the UK where you can buy it such as Lemonburst and The Natural Store .  I’d really recommend it, so look out for it in your local shops – ask your supermarket, your local DIY shop or the healthfood store.  It may seem expensive at £4.95 a tub but it will last you for months – or probably years if you’re a grubby student!

I use it for everything you would use a scouring cream for.  Cleaning sinks, bathroom porcelain or plastic, silverware, tiles and grouting, pvc furniture, silver, copper...  It even takes off the soot from our wood burning stove door.  And it’s safe for your skin.

If you can’t find Pierre d’argent near you, and don’t like buying online, I saw in Vinegar Tips that you can make a scouring cream yourself using vinegar and bicarbonate of soda.  That’s another useful product, by the way.  And you have already bought it for my soda bread recipe, haven’t you?

Another versatile and economical product is soda crystals (not to be confused with caustic soda!).  An excellent water softener and degreaser.   I mainly use it for flooring – tiles and sticky lino (hello, student flats).  But not on wood floors.  It’s also excellent for washing down paintwork, either for a quick clean or in preparation for repainting.  As I use biodegradable laundry products, I also put in a bit of soda crystals in the machine now and then to soften the water and whiten whites.

It’s also a good product for clearing a blocked toilet or drains.  Take a look at The Green Store Online for many more uses. 

These three products will probably set you back all of, say £7.  And you can clean everything with them.  Kind on your purse, kind on you, kind on the environment.  Win, win, win. Nice.