Reduce Your Shopping Bill and Gain More Space: 3 Must Have Products for Your Cleaning Cupboard

Reduce Your Shopping Bill and Gain More Space: 3 Must Have Products for Your Cleaning Cupboard

Mr Muscle, Cillit Bang, Dettol and all the raft of cleaning materials take up so much room in your cupboard. It seems they cost more than your rent and you don’t actually know what they are doing to your environment, your lungs or your pets.

What’s more, a lot of them don’t seem to live up to their promises, leaving lighter marks on your soft furnishings, but marks none the less. What’s more, they require enough elbow grease to warrant recruiting a bodybuilder as your cleaner.

You need individual products for removing grime, treating the carpet, killing bacteria, shining your windows and mirrors and de-crusting your oven.

You have air freshener to eradicate stale odours from the house, Febreze for to eliminate dog smells from the sofa and incense sticks to burn in your sitting room, triggering everyone’s coughs.

That’s just a small list of everything you need to keep a clean and tidy home.

But what if we told you, you only need three major ingredients to solve many household problems?

Item 1: Baking Soda

Baking soda has an abundance of uses to make your home clean and fresh.

Some of the best applications for this wonder ingredient are:

  • Putting a box in your fridge to trap overpowering food smells
  • Getting rid of greasy stains
  • Cleaning damp stains from your carpet
  • Cleaning out your oven or microwave
  • Freshening the air in your home
  • Getting rid of that nasty smell from your clothes when they have sat too long in the washing machine
  • Keeping the loo clean and odour-free.

Basically, anything that involves stubborn stains or nasty smells, your baking soda comes to the rescue.

Item 2: White Vinegar

White vinegar often works well with baking soda, but it also has some great applications of its own.

If baking soda is the Superman for smelly laundry and nasty grime, think of white vinegar as the knight that gives you back your shiny armour.

If the product you bought specially to bring out the gleam in your windows has disappointed you, try using vinegar to remove smears from your glass. This works great with a scrunched up bit of newspaper.

You can also return the shimmer to metallic objects such as cutlery and taps. Also, If you need to remove limescale from surfaces or from inside your kettle, white vinegar is the way to go.

It also helps laundry, working as a fabric conditioner to get rid of the cardboard towel effect – Not a great feeling for your soft skin.

Finally, if your dog or cat has left any puddles around the house, you can deploy white vinegar to clean it up and get rid of the smell.

Item 3: Essential Oils

Essential oils go a long way to making your home smell lovely, especially if you have a canine lodger in the house.

Essential oils come in different categories: some are anti-viral and others are anti-bacterial. The ones that fight bacteria AND viruses are: tea tree, eucalyptus, thyme, clove, oregano and lavender.

To freshen up the air in general, citrus oils are a must-have: lemon, lemongrass, citronella are just some.

If you want to purify the air so it’s safe to breathe in, try grapefruit, balsam fir needle, ginger and white camphor. There are many others you can look into as well, this is just a small list.

Did you know: Essential oils can be blended with each other and used in conjunction with white vinegar and baking soda to accomplish a range of household cleaning tasks.

A Word of Warning about Essential Oils

Not all oils are safe for small animals. While you shouldn’t have any oils near birds, dogs are a lot more accommodating. You can use lavender, cardamom, chamomile, spearmint and thyme with a dog at home, but there is a long list of unsafe oils too.

Cats are very sensitive to lots of different oils. They can get very sick as they are unable to metabolise the phenols, something which can lead to fatalities. While we could give you a safe list for cats, there is a lot of conflicting information, so we advise you to do your own research and consult a vet.

A safe practice would be to use a diffuser in rooms where the cat doesn’t go, and not to make use of the oils anywhere a cat is likely to wander. Good ventilation is key. Also, make sure they are free to leave the room in case they become uncomfortable.

 

These are three super products for your home to get lots done. If you’re moving house and you are worried about the shopping bill for all those products is going to punch you hard in the current account, worry no more. Concentrate on making baking soda and white vinegar work for your home, and maybe explore the essential oils in time for your house warming.

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