Green Cleaning minus the Greenwashing BS

1. Welcome to Green Cleaning minus the Greenwashing BS: e Hi, everyone. I'm crystal from Perma crafters. Today I'm sharing cheap and safe ways to clean every nook and cranny of your home. Could be easy to effectively sanitize your house while avoiding toxic industrial cleaners and protecting your health, the health of your family and the planet. So in this workshop, I will start by reviewing what kinds of toxic chemicals are being used in everyday products and how they can be harmful to your health. Then I'll introduce to you non toxic cleaning ingredients that will become your best friends. As you delve into making your own safe cleaning products, I'll review basic safety precautions and tips for acquiring the rights cleaning gear. Then I'll share my cleaning recipes and tricks for every room of your house, from the kitchen to your bathroom, your laundry room. You're living areas for each room. I'll go over your list of cleaning Cabinet essentials. These are the products you'll want to pre make to have a steady supply of basic cleaning products on hand. Don't forget that all the ingredients, all the recipes, tricks and safety precautions are listed in your conscious cleaning 101 workbook. Well, I hope that your house is due for cleaning because I'm sure they will have an unstoppable urge to deep clean your house when this workshop is through. 2. Toxic Chemicals in Everyday Products: e. So why don't I make my own cleaners? I didn't have any interest in this at all until I began looking into the ingredients used in common household cleaners. I was shocked to see long lists of toxic chemicals that could be putting my health at risk . We use all sorts of cleaners to make our living space sanitary and safe. We shouldn't have to worry about bringing in potential Kristen engines of her house just because we want clean surfaces and clean clothes. For a while, I didn't know how to step away from these industrial cleaners. I didn't realize it was quite simple to make cheap and effective cleaners myself. They were safe for me and non toxic for the environment. So when I started making cleaning recipes, it was a big relief for me to step away from industrial cleaners and prioritize my health. He was very fitting to be filming this workshop in his toxic free straw bale and called house that I built with a community last summer. So let me share with you what the current situation is in the United States and Europe when it comes to household cleaning products, which is the reason why I got into this right now. There are over 80,000 chemicals in use on the market in the States and about 2000 new ones are introduced every year for use in our personal care products. Our household cleaning products are food and many everyday items. In 50 years, chemical use in the U. S has increased over 2000% Every day. Tens of millions of US women used 12 to 20 body care products, and the average American is exposed to over 100 different chemicals from these personal care products every day. That's not counting our exposure to the chemicals in our cleaning products, which we make use of daily. Of course, not all chemicals or toxic chemical is just a substance used in or made by a chemical process. But there is substantial concern among scientists and citizens over the potentially toxic effects of the chemicals that are in our household cleaners and our body care products. But you might ask yourself, why should I be concerned about these chemicals? Why should I care? These chemicals must be tested for their safety, right? Wrong. That is what consumers assume only the truth of the matter is, the majority of these chemicals do not undergo safety testing. Why is that? Industries in the states do not have to scientifically demonstrate the safety of a chemical before it is available for sale on the market. A chemical is by default, considered safe until there is conclusive evidence to the contrary, as consumers were lab rats in this experiment. So cosmetic companies, for instance, will tell you our product a safe. But in reality, 89% of the ingredients using cosmetics have not been assessed by the Food and Drug Administration or by the industry itself. The thing is, the FDA has minimal authority to regulate the ingredients in cosmetics. They have no premarket approval authority. So who is assessing a product's potential toxicity before it's sold? Sometimes no one, sometimes the industry selling the product. But there's no dis interested party that's doing the assessment. The United States, cosmetic firms or cleaning companies have the option of conducting whatever safety tests they see fit. No one is asking them to scientifically prove their product is safe. So does that mean that a product is unsafe? No, but there is no independent verification to say that it's safe either, and the U. S is getting isolated in terms of how it determines the safety of chemicals on the market. So why does the US have such a pro industry law A bit of history? In 1976 under the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Environmental Protection Agency became in charge of overseeing the U. S. Chemical industry. But when that came into law, there were already 62,000 chemicals in use on the market. So what did they do about those? They grandfathered those 62,000 chemicals in they didn't spend. Resource is testing whether those were actually safe. They just kept using them as before. Because of that, industry's got away with using toxic chemicals like asbestos. Lead vinyl chloride. Invest in L. A, all of which were found to be toxic and are now highly regulated. So there are still scummy products out there, and the U. S and the U have completely different ways of determining what a risk means. When it comes to chemicals, you evaluates the toxicity of a chemical by looking at the accumulation of proof against it . If his potential to cause harm, it's likely they remove it from circulation. They have a precautionary approach. The U. S does not take action so readily. It waits for conclusive scientific evidence before taking the issue to the courtroom and attempting to remove it from circulation. But assessing the precise effect of a chemical is very hard because chemical exposure occurs in small quantities over time, and even if you can prove there is a risk, there are still legal barriers blocking the e P A. From taking action. What is the outcome then? Many substances that have been removed from circulation and consumer goods in the U are still widely used in the states that you has required. The industry's provide data on the toxicity of tens of thousands of chemicals that have never been tested in the states. In 2007 that in you developed a new legislation called Reach, which stands for registration, authorization and evaluation of chemicals. It was created to remove toxins from circulation and consumer goods. Reach requires industries to supply toxicity data for thousands of chemicals in their products. So suddenly it's up to the industry to scientifically prove that their products are in fact safe before they get on the market. The industry is responsible to answer questions like, Are there potential dangers associated with your product? Is it cause genetic mutations? Is it contained Chris indigenes or endocrine disruptors? Do they damage the reproductive system? An independent party that verifies this research with this legislation, unsafe substances are consistently being removed from circulation, for better or worse, the US prioritizing consumer health before profits since reach past, the United States had toe either adapt this new legislation and be forced to remove toxic substances from the products being shipped to the U to meet the use higher standards or lose the U market. Of course, losing the you mark It was out of the question, so the US adapted. But here's the kicker. Many U. S Industries took out toxic chemicals for the U market, but they don't do the same for their own country. They assert that they cannot do the same in the U. S. So some shampoo than the states contain formaldehyde and 14 dioxane to possible carcinogens . But these same shampoo brands sell the same version of the shampoo in Europe without those ingredients. So these companies have alternatives. They just are not implementing them. And cosmetics companies are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby against laws in the states that they've already agreed to abide to in Europe. Why would they want to keep using those same chemicals that were banned in Europe, possibly because it's cheaper to use them, or possibly because it creates a slightly less effective product if they don't? But the priority is certainly not consumer health. 3. Health Risks of Toxins in Everyday Products: we all have toxic chemicals inside of our bodies. Even fetuses have toxins coursing through their veins. So where are the potential health effects of these toxic chemicals, with both cleaning products and body care products, their acute or immediate hazards? And then there are long term effects. Cleaning ingredients can irritate your skin. Your respiratory system give you watery eyes or chemical burns. Most accurately dangerous products are corrosive drain cleaners, oven cleaners and acidic toilet bowl cleaners. But using industrial cleaning products can also lead to chronic health problems. Researchers have long known that exposure to cleaning products could harm the respiratory system. It's well documented that professional cleaners and people who clean at home have a higher risk of asthma and respiratory problems. But important study came out shortly after we filmed this workshop that shed even more light on this issue. It was published in February 2018 in the Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine by Spain and Colleagues. It showed a direct correlation between cleaning and declining lung function. The researchers studied over 6000 men and women over the course of 20 years. They concluded that women were more susceptible to lung damage than men and found that quote. Women cleaning at home or working as occupational cleaners had accelerated decline in lung function, suggesting that exposures related to cleaning activities may constitute a risk toe long term respiratory health. Further, their findings suggest that respiratory health is impaired for 10 to 20 years. After cleaning activities, they write, quote the effect size was comparable to the effect size related to 10 to 20 pack years of tobacco smoking. That means that lung function in women declined as much from cleaning with these products as it would have from smoking 20 cigarettes a day for 10 to 20 years. After the study came out, scientists advised people to use microfiber cloths and water for cleaning instead. This is not something I will advise you to do. It all in this course is microfibers. Create micro plastic contamination in our oceans and our tap water simply washing your micro fiber cloth releases tiny plastic particles and water, which harms marine life when it reaches the rivers and oceans. The U. S. Also has the highest micro fiber tap water contamination rate at 94%. The health implications for humans of microfibers in our tap water remains unknown, but based on the implications that's been having for marine wildlife, the situation is very concerning. Cleaning products could lead to other chronic health problems, like developing different types of cancer or hormone disruption. That is often a concern with body care products to babies and young Children whose brains and bodies air developing are the most vulnerable to these toxic chemicals hiding in our cleaning products. But adults are not protected from the effects, either. Let's look a breast cancer. Since 1975 the rate of breast cancer rose over 30% in both women and men. Some of the known risk factors of breast cancer include hormone replacement therapy, later childbirth, not nursing babies and taking the birth control pill. But men don't have any of those risk factors, and yet they still face the same increase in breast cancer. In fact, 50% of new breast cancer cases cannot be explained by known risk factors. Why is that? Scientists are finding that exposure to toxic chemicals on a daily basis may be a significant contributing factor. A 2010 study published in the Journal of Environmental Health finds a possible link between breast cancer and the use of house with cleaning products containing personage ins such as methylene chloride in both the U. S and the U. There are also rising rates of neurological problems, infertility and hormonal malformations, according to scientists. Thes air likely the troubling effects of our exposure to toxins and everyday products. Cosmetics substances in particular have many endocrine disrupting chemicals and reproductive toxins, which may be linked to fertility problems. 7.3 million women in the U. S. Or having trouble either conceiving were carrying to term, which is a 49% increase since 1998. That amount of genetic change should not happen in just 20 years. So what's responsible? Scientists are finding connections with toxic chemicals in our household products. The past 50 years, chemical use has risen 2000%. What else has changed over that same amount of time? Childhood brain cancer is up 38% leukemia and Children, 74%. Asthma, 80% early onset puberty, 55% 80 HD, 53% genital deformities and baby boys 122%. And life threatening birth defects 100% for the toxic chemicals and you're everyday products. Be responsible. There's new research coming out all the time. Connecting the dots and pointing fingers at the chemicals in our house with products. Could your toxic cleaners and your house will be negatively affecting you on your loved ones? Yes. If this is unacceptable to you, you're exactly in the right place to learn about how to step away from these risky ingredients and take charge of your health. 4. Navigating Cleaning Product Labels: How do you navigate labels in the store? And is it even worth learning the long list of ingredients to avoid? Let's have a look at common store bought items like air fresheners, dish soap, laundry, detergents, fabric softeners, toilet paper, perfumes, deodorants, lotions and nail polish. What do all these have in common? They all have fragrance as an ingredients to make their products smell good. But what is fragrance? It turns out chemical recipes for fragrance or trade secrets in the U. S. So the industries are not required to list the actual ingredients in the fragrance mix, they just label it fragrance. And guess what? A study revealed that 1/3 of the ingredients used in fragrance are actually toxic. Sally Yates, which are known endocrine disruptors, are often one of the hidden ingredients under the term fragrance. Now let's look at deodorants, shampoos, toothpastes, mouthwashes, moisturizers, skin cleaners and household cleaners made with fox elated alcohols. In these, you often find 14 dioxane, which is banned in the U. Given that it's toxic to organs and as a possible Krystyna gin, so should you try to avoid buying products with 14 dioxane in it yes, but good luck, because again, it's not even required to be listed on labels. You could learn the long list of ingredients to avoid an everyday products, but many of them, like the neuro toxic untold viewing or fale AIDS, and 14 dioxane are not even required to be listed on labels. So what's really in our personal care products? What's really in our cleaning products? What's in our food? The paint on our walls? As consumers, we do not have a clear answer, because even if we learn to read labels, many toxic ingredients are not even required to be listed. You can buy safer products by paying more money for them and use. Resource is like the Environmental Working Group's skin Deep cosmetics databases. A guy to see how terrible or decent the products you buy really are, and I highly recommend you check it out, or you can start from scratch and make your own safe products and know exactly what ingredients are in your recipe. 5. Safe Ingredients: Vinegar, kombucha vinegar, baking soda: It's so easy to effectively sanitize your house with some very basic ingredients that are cheap, widely available, and they won't put your health at risk. So get comfortable because I'm going to walk you through the ingredients that you can use to clean every last nook and cranny of your home. Remember that you can follow along with your conscious cleaning. Wanna one workbook. We'll go over what the ingredients are there properties, any limitations they have or safety precautions to take when handling them? Any special storage instructions that they might have and what type to purchase or in some cases, how to make the product yourself. So let's get started with white vinegar. White vinegar is an absolute must. It's a cheap miracle product that's very popular in cleaning because it has an endless amount of uses depending on where you live, this white vinegar might be called distilled vinegar, white vinegar, distilled white vinegar or spirit vinegar. No matter its name, it's a fermented clear liquid made up of water and acetic acid. If you live in France, it's likely fermented from beetroot, alcohol or sometimes week. If you're in the States is likely made from corn. If you're in England, it's likely multi. The vinegar is about agreeable, and widely available is generally diluted to a 5% acetic acid solution in the states and an 8% acetic acid solution in France. Either way, it will get the cleaning job done. You might just need a little bit more elbow grease if you get yours in the states. So what are vinegars? Properties? Because vinegar is so acidic, it's very effective at decreasing. This is why you'll find it in our window cleaning recipes. For example, it's excellent at removing grease marks you may have left on windows with your fingers. It's also efficient at making glass shine, which is another reason that it's ideal for your windows. It's also your go to ingredient for neutralizing odors. It's highly acidic and breaks down odor molecules. If there are bad odors in your household, you can boil vinegar and leave the pot in the middle of the room to let it take action. Vinegar also fights lime scale by oxidizing it and the acetic acid then dissolves the calcium. That's why vinegar is ideal to clean showerheads and to wash toilet bowls. It's anti septic anti parasitic anti fungal, which makes it perfect for sanitizing services around your home. It also softens linens and revives colors and close, which is why we use vinegar to make our home made dryer sheets. And finally, it's efficient at making medals shine, and we share some recipes in your workbook on how to use vinegar to achieve this. Something else to note is that when vinegar is heated, it becomes a more potent cleaning agent. A study by Colorado State University show that when white vinegar is heated to 150 F, it's as effective as a bleach intruding, mysterious equal and salmonella. So if you're cleaning your sinks, kitchen services and shower windows with vinegar and water mix, you can go ahead and boil the vinegar mixture beforehand. Just make sure not to burn yourself. Boiling vinegar is also a great trick to unclog sinks, but I'll share more vinegar tricks with you later on. Some limitations to take into account when using vinegar are not to use a non marble limestone or varnished surfaces because the acidity of the vinegar will ruin your surface. Don't makes vinegar with bleach for sodium carbonate, either Where can cause a toxic reaction. Finally, don't use vinegar with 14% acetic acid. It's classified as dangerous in Europe. If it's heated, it should certainly not be briefed in. So what type of vinegar should you buy? Well, you could purchase vinegar in different concentrations. If you live in the states, it's likely that you'll have Onley 5% acetic acid vinegar available to you. But if you live in France, you have the option of buying 8% 12% or 14%. Acetic acid opt for 8% or 12% Onley. In that case, 14% is considered unsafe. For the purposes of removing lime scale, 8% will do the job. Avoid buying cleaning vinegars that have been mixed with petroleum based synthetic fragrances. Because thes should not be in contact with services that you prepare food on for the purposes of cleaning, you can use vinegar that's being sold specifically for cleaning or specifically for cooking . It really doesn't matter. The cooking vinegar. It will be more pure, which is really unnecessary for cleaning purposes. Either way, go for the cheaper option. Wasn't alternatives to store bought vinegar If you don't want to purchase vinegar at the store. You can make your own kombucha at home and let it turn to vinegar. Acetic acid has the same cleaning properties as store bought vinegar. You won't necessarily know the percentage of acetic acid, but you can see how effective your particular batch of kombucha vinegar is at D. Greasing neutralising odors and removing lime scale baking soda is next. It's a white powder that has a 1,000,000 uses, and it's an absolute must for cleaning there. Two ways to make baking soda. The original process to make baking soda includes extracting soda ash from salt lakes in Wyoming, Turkey and several European and African countries. That process still exists, but still then the soul of a synthetic process was developed, which makes sodium carbonate from salt and chalk is the first step in making baking soda. So what are the properties of baking soda Baking soda? Deodorize is by neutralizing acids. It doesn't just mask odors. It actually destroys the odor causing agents. It's so alkaline the bacteria and fungus die when they're in contact with it. You can use it to deodorize your hamper, your stuffy car, old carpet, lots of ways baking soda is a soft abrasive, so it's perfect removing crowd from sensitive surfaces. But it's also great for scaring a burnt pin or even for washing your oven. Baking soda has lime scale fighting properties, which is why it's used to maintain your washing machine through this property. It softens water, which can also help give a longer life to your clothes. This is why it's an amazing ingredient that we use in our laundry powder recipe. Baking soda is also excellent at removing stains from clothes and carpets. It has strong D greasing properties and fights mold. It leaves services shiny and polished, like kitchen counters and silverware. Baking does have a few limitations, though You should not use it on aluminum because it will likely stain it Would and silk should not be treated with baking soda. Either the fibers could be ruined. Another thing to take into a consideration is that baking soda should not be pre mixed with vinegar or the solution will become neutral within seconds. If you makes baking soda with vinegar, acetic acid in the vinegar will react with sodium bicarbonate and it will form sodium acetate and carbonic acid. The carbonic acid will quickly turn to carbon dioxide has the bubbles. What was that reaction occurs. All that's left is a dilute sodium asked a solution, which has no cleaning value. So how do you store your baking soda? Baking soda should not be stored in your fridge. It should be kept in a sealed container in dry conditions out of the sunlight. Of course, it should never be stored in a metal container or non food grade plastic, so keep it in its original packaging. If you can, baking soda could become inactive if the package is not sealed properly, so make sure that sealed there are a few ways to check it to see if you're baking. Soda is still good. If you don't protected from humidity, baking soda will either solidify or become cakey. The ultimate test is two. Makes one part of baking soda with four parts of vinegar. If the mixture does not bubble than the baking soda has lost its effectiveness. So what type of baking soda should you buy? There's various types of baking soda taken by, and they very based on where you live in the world. You can use baking soda for cooking but it will be more expensive, sold in smaller quantities, and the grains will likely be finer, which is not necessarily the best thing for cleaning purposes. Baking, so that is not specifically meant for cooking may not be as pure, but the difference. Impurity is really insignificant, especially for cleaning purposes, is generally much cheaper, sold in larger quantities and has slightly larger grains. So this is the one that you want. 6. Safe Ingredients: Washing soda, Marseille soap, Castile soap, Lemon: washing soda is next, and it goes by different names. Depending on where you live, It can be called soda crystals or soda ash, for example. What you're looking for, chemically speaking, is sodium carbonate. It comes in a powder form where, sometimes in the form of small white pellets, it's made from chalk, salt and ammonia again through the solve a synthetic process. The resulting mixture is non toxic for the environment. So what are washing sodas? Properties? Washing soda is very alkaline. It has a ph of 11. This is why it d greases and dissolves. Acids is very useful for cleaning around the kitchen, scaring pans, cleaning greasy grills, cleaning lawn chairs outside and cleaning lots of different kinds of messes. It can also be used in your bathroom to clean the joints between the bathroom tiles. And it works very well as an additive for your laundry detergent. It's excellent at removing stains from Greece from blood from Inc from T from coffee. And it also fights lime scale, which is why it's an excellent choice for laundry machine maintenance because it helps prevent lime scale build up. If your water is hard and has a lot of lime scale. It's a good laundry booster because it will help your white clothes stay white. Washing soda also works well on burn marks on pots and pans and on stainless steel. It's also effective at unclogging your plumbing. Washing soda disintegrates organic matter, so using it regularly to maintain your plumbing system is actually good practice in terms of washing sodas. Limitations. It should not be used on aluminum cookware because it's so alkaline that it will change the color of the aluminum. It should not be used on would either or unvarnished surfaces or on ceramic cook tops either. And it's not a good idea to wash your wool or your delicate clothing with washing soda, either. In terms of safety, do not makes washing soda and acidic substances like vinegar because it can cause a dangerous reaction. And do not confuse washing soda with caustic soda or lie. Lie needs to be handled very carefully because it can cause chemical burns. They're two very different things. Do know that washing soda is a strong skin irritant, so you should always wear protective gloves. When handling it, your skin could dry out. Make sure not to get washing soda and your eyes, either. If you do, rents them out thoroughly with water immediately and contact your care provider. There are two main types of washing soda on the market. Some companies add water to the washing soda, which causes it to crystallize. Others leave the washing soda in its pure form. He purchased it in this pure form who only need 1/3 of it for your recipes. In many countries, washing soda is easily available, and it's cheap. If you live in the states. This arm and hammer super washing soda works just fine for me. If you can't get your hands on any, you can actually make your own washing soda by using baking soda and putting it in the oven , something to look into if you want to experiment. So let's move on to our next ingredient, which is Mass a soap and Castillo soap, their next. So you'll choose one or the other, depending on where you live in the world before I get into them, I want to talk briefly about what soap is and the basic soap making process so pontification is the process that creates soap, and it's typically made from mixing lie and fats together. These fats can come from different types of vegetable oils. Depending on the type of vegetable oil that you decide to add to your soap, it will create a different soap. Maybe a softer soap, a silk, your soap, a stable lather or a fluffy leather lie on its own is dangerous, and it should not touch your skin, and you should be using eye protection when you're handling it. Thankfully, though, lie once it goes through the process of Sopon indication. That is when it's mixed with fast from the oils to create the soap. Its chemical composition changes and they're as, and there is actually no lie left in the finished products, so it's no longer dangerous. So now that you know the basics of soap and what soap is typically made of, I'll go into Mass a soap. So it's a recipe that originally comes from Marseille, France. Traditionally, it's a mixture of lie and vegetable oils, and it's a hypo allergenic soap that causes no skin irritations and no allergies so massive . So was a fantastic stain remover, and it's gentle on delicate linens and on wool, which is why it's an important ingredient for our laundry recipes. It also removes rug stains and even stains on tiles, and it's very effective at cleaning services. It's also an antiseptic and anti microbial, and it could be used to routinely maintain stone or marble services. So if you get your hands on it, you might notice that it doesn't bubble all that. Much of the soap doesn't bubble as much as other soaps. It doesn't mean that it's not doing his job. Lots and lots of bubbles are actually not necessary to clean effectively. Psychologically. When we see a lot of bubbles, we assume that things are being cleaned so many soap companies and add different oils like coconut oil and palm oil to make their soaps bubble more. But it's actually not necessary to add these ingredients for the soap to be an effective cleaning agent. So how do you buy Marseille soap? If you live in Europe? It's easy. If you don't live in Europe, you'll likely want to buy Casteel bars, Open said. But if mass a soap is the one that you want, you should know that many, if not most, of the mass A soaps on the market are actually not. That's a soap to be sure that its actual real Max I. So if you want to check that, there aren't any coloring, added that it's unscented and there should not be any animal fat in it. Sometimes this animal fat goes by the name of Tal awaits on the label, and it should be 72% olive oil. So if you don't live in Europe, then Castillo bar soap could be the cheaper and more local option for you. For the most part, you can use uncensored Castiel Bar soap and Mass A. So interchangeably. The Castile soap is also made of olive oil and lie, and it's inspired from a recipe that came from the Castiel region of Spain. So the bar soap is made with lie just like the Mass A soap is, and the liquid Castiel soap is made with potassium hydroxide, just like black soap is. Both types of soap work well for household cleaning purposes. Lemons are up next, Love and Ryan's Lemon Quarter is lemon juice. All parts of a lemon can be used in cleaning. Lemon has really high citric acid content. About 6% and it's very effective at disinfecting, so you can use lemon juice to sanitize sponges. You can squeeze some onto a kitchen towel, and you can clean your fridge with it. To fight mold, you can apply lemon quarters directly to sinks and joints. Just make sure to wipe the surface off with water afterwards. Lemon is also abrasive, so you can mix it with baking soda to make a scouring pace if you want it to. Lime juice also fights lime scale so you can use some to maintain your water boiler, for instance, so lemon not only smells nice, it also deodorize is so you can place half a lemon in the fridge to neutralize unpleasant smells. Or if you've just cooked fish and your oven and you want to cover up the smell of fish, you can place lemon peels in your oven while it's still warm. Teoh let the lemon odor diffuse throughout your kitchen. Lemon also removes stains that could be used to act on a stain on your clothes or also to whiten your clothes. You can also pair it with salts to act on tea stains and lime scale, and finally, lemon could help things become shiny. You can use it to make your glasses and silverware shine or to make oxidized jewelry vibrant again, like copper jewelry. 7. Safe ingredients: Citric acid, salt, cornstarch, essential oils, ash, coffee grounds, saponin-rich p: And then there is citric acid. Citric acid is, of course, present in lemons, but when it's produced industrially, it's actually made from sugar cane. Molasses is citric acid fights lime scale so it can be used to de calcify, sinks and taps. It's also a good additive to toilet bowl cleaners, since it will not only de calcify act is an antibacterial agent as well. In terms of limitations, citric acid should not be used on enamel, aluminum or marble, and when it comes to safety should not mix the citric acid with washing soda with sodium carbonate or bleach. Since it's very acidic, you should wear gloves when you use it and make sure not to get any on your face or on your clothes. If you have a sensitive respiratory system, take extra precautions to avoid breathing it in. Citric acid tends to be overpriced when it's sold in these small little bottles in health food stores. So I tried to look at the bulk section instead for cheaper auctions. Salt salt can be very useful in terms of cleaning. It can absorb moisture, which makes it effective at absorbing certain types of stains, like wine spills depending on what your cleaning you can use. Fine salt or coarse salt. It's abrasive, and it's the perfect way to scrub off stuck on food or grease. It's also the key ingredient for cleaning copper and making metal shine, so it's really useful to have it on hand. And chances are you already have some in your kitchen. Cornstarch. Cornstarch is a white starch powder that's derived from corn, grain or wheat. Basically, it acts as a deodorizer and has wonderful absorptive properties, so it makes it perfect for absorbing greasy stains on carpets. Corn starch is also a simple way to treat stains on dry textiles like leather and suede. It's just a matter of spring from corn starch onto the stain and letting it act overnight. So let's move on to essential oils. What's essential about them? They're wonderful cleaning agents there, extracts of aromatic plants. The oils are extracted through steam desolation or through cold pressing. Essential oils have a variety of properties, depending on the type of plants that you have your essential oils from, they can deodorize and bring pleasant aromas to your clothes and to lots of areas around your house. You can use drops of essential oils like lavender and your dryer sheets. For instance, you could deodorize your bathroom by adding some drops of mint or Scots pine essential oil to some baking soda or whatever aroma you prefer. Essential oils can also disinfect, depending again on what type of essential oil you choose. They can be antiseptic, anti microbial or anti fungal. You can use tea, tree oil, eucalyptus oil, clove oil or cinnamon oil as part of a cleaning solution to disinfect your kitchen counter or door handles. Thes Same four oils also fight mold, so you can mix them with sodium carbonate and some water to kill the mold on your bathroom tile joints. For example. Tea, tree and Citrus oils like lemon, Bergama, grapefruit, distilled lime, mandarin. They're all cleaning agents that could be added to multi purpose cleaning sprays. They have an energizing aroma that will really leave your house smelling fresh. If you're adding these oils to water or vinegar, they won't mix. The oils will just float to the top, so remember to just shake your bottles right before use. That's what you're doing. Tea, tree oil, lemongrass, eucalyptus, cinnamon and clove also fight aphids. You can mix thes and baking soda and apply the mixed to areas that have aphids or a foods, depending on where you live in the world. You can also try to keep insects at bay with rose, geranium and lemongrass or peppermint oil. If you have an ant problem, there are some limitations to take into account with essential oils. If they're being used on wood on plastic or marble, they should first be diluted in a carrier base to protect your furniture. It's also good practice to rinse all of the services that are treated with central oils with water afterwards. In terms of safety, you never want to use essential oils just on their own. If you want to add them to a liquid mixture, used 20 drops or more of a central oils for seven ounces of liquid, like the *** and water, for instance. It's good practice to put gloves on when you're working with these oils because you may have dermal sensitivities to them. They also should not be overused, since they emit volatile organic compounds that can actually irritate your lungs. Many oils are not suitable for pets or Children, either. Small Children. Whenever you use the make sure to a rate the room afterwards. For more details on essential oils safety, you can refer to our safety instruction section so essential oils should be stored in the refrigerator. If you don't have space in your refrigerator, simply make sure that they're being kept in a cool spot out of the sunlight. Most oils can keep for 3 to 5 years from the date of desolation, or even more. But Citrus only keeps for 1 to 2 years. If it's gone bad, it might be hard to tell. It might appear dark and viscous, but the best thing to do is to check the expiration date or better yet, the date of distillation and the U. S. There's unfortunately no labeling regulation for essential oils. Many oils may have been diluted down with other oils, or they may have synthetics added to them that shape where they are, the more likely it is that they're not pure essential oils. If you're located in the States, we recommend opting for brands such as Aromatics International. Now, foods still point aromatics or eaten botanicals. Oh, next up are two ingredients you might not think of using as cleaning agents. The 1st 1 is a last traditional cleaning product to have on hand. It's ash from your chimney, ideally from trees that are high and potash content like oaks, chestnuts, fruit trees and a cases. So would ash has potash in it, which is potassium carbonate ingredients sometimes used in so production. It's effective at dissolving Greece and believe it or not, that's why we're using ash water for cleaning our clothes and to act on stains. It's also gentle on your clothes. Ash also makes a great scouring pace because of its absorptive properties that can be used in sinks and tubs to clean burn pots and pans to clean your furnace or windows full of such ash. Who would have known if you're an avid coffee drinker, which is actually not? Don't waste your coffee grounds. Put them to good use by using them to clean your house. Coffee grounds are a natural deodorizer, which means that you can put leftover coffee grounds in a bowl and said it in your fridge to neutralize odors of your fridge is stinky or if your hands smell like fish or garlic after cope after cooking, you can rub some coffee grounds between your hands. Since coffee grounds are abrasive and absorptive, you can also use them as a scouring pace by putting someone a sponge to clean a greasy pan , for example. And here's a trick for those who have chimneys. You can also add human coffee grounds on top of the ashes in your chimney before cleaning your chimneys. They don't have to have a cloud of ash particles that form when you sweep it, but if you're super smart, you would actually choose those ashes toe. Wash your clothes in the first place. Last but not least, certain plans are rich in Sapone, in which is a natural detergent and foaming substance. The surfactant is effective at lifting grease, dirt and crime from clothing. The Morse opponent a plant has, the better it will clean, so you clean your laundry. You can use soap nuts from the stupendous moo coo rosie tree. But if you're shipping them from halfway across the world, you can see what options you have locally instead, and make a dick auction out of alfalfa horse, chestnut, common ivy or soap. We'd Sapone area of fist in Dallas for example, But we'll go into more details about this in our laundry room section. Also, fun facts. If you live in Latin America, you can use Kenya to clean your laundry. But when it shipped here, they actually get rid of the Cascade s Latino. Intense is not simply was sad. 8. Uncommon Products: Black soap, Sodium percarbonate, Terre de Sommieres clay: way we've gone over common ingredients you can use to make your own cleaning products. I'm not going over three fantastic ingredients that may or may not become, and depending on where you live if you live in Europe, these three ingredients will be widely available and very cheap. If you live in the states, it will cost you more money to get your hands on them. Either way, they are good ingredients to know about. So let's start with black soap now. It took me a while to figure out that black soap, as sold in France and black soap as sold in the states, are two very different things. The term black soap in the States refers to a soap that's used for skin and hair care. There are different variations to the recipes from the states, but it's often made with palm oil, palm kernel oil, shea butter, cocoa butter and potassium hydroxide. This is not the soap that I'm recommending that you use for cleaning your house. Put it away. Not that one. The blacks open, referring to is made of vegetable oils, most often flax seed oil or olive oil and potassium hydroxide. It's a natural soap that's about degradable. You can easily find it in France, and it's specifically meant for cleaning. It would be too harsh to use on your skin. The only brand that I know of the United States that sells this black soap is ma use, since there's less demand for this type of soap, it's three times the price in the states as compared to France. But at least it's available to you now. This particular black soap recipe was inspired by the 3000 year old Aleppo soap recipe, which is made of lie olive oil and laurel oil. Instead of making it from lie, However, it's made from potassium hydroxide, also called caustic potash, so it could be made with lie or protesting hydroxide. Since this one is made of sopon ified potassium hydroxide, it creates a software soap in it. Otherwise would with Sopon. If I'd lie. That's why it's liquid soap. So what are black soaps qualities When you mix black soap with some water, it has a lot of cleaning properties. The potassium hydroxide that's in the black soap is corrosive, which is a useful so property. It also has decreasing properties, which makes it ideal for cleaning greasy surfaces like your kitchen hood. The kitchen. Sink your oven so we use it a lot in our kitchen. It's an insecticide and anti septic that could be used to control a fence. It's a stain remover and can be added to your laundry detergent as well. It makes surfaces shine, which is why it's perfect for cleaning kitchen counters, floors, ceramic tiles, toilet bowls and even windows. It'll protect those services, and I believe them shiny and clean. It can also be used to maintain silverware and objects made of brass, copper, metal and stainless steel in terms of safety. Black soap and household cleaning soaps in general should not be used on your skin. They might irritate your skin, since they're not as fatty as soaps that are specifically made for skin care. Like the other type of black soap that you find in states, sodium per carbonates is next, and it's a white alkaline powder that's made from mixing sodium carbonate and hydrogen peroxide. It whitens laundry, and it gets rid of stains of its mixed in water that's at least 100 4 F. If you have white clothes stained with tea, coffee, wine, blood, sweat or anything of the like. Sodium bicarbonate will be your laundry additive. You need to add it to your laundry. It also softens water, which makes you detergent more efficient. It has antibacterial qualities and confined molds. What's also a good solution for cleaning tile joints and even shower curtains and cutting boards? As for its limitations, you should not use it on aluminum on ceramic plates. Run with surfaces, since it can damage them. And when it comes to safety, do not mix it with acids like vinegar, lemon juice or citric acid. Do not use it near sources of heat, either or it could combust. Sodium bicarbonate doesn't present any kind of chronic health effects of any kind, but it is corrosive, so you do need to protect your hands with gloves and make sure not to get any in your eyes when you use it. So if you live in the United States, since there's less demand for it, it could be 2 to 4 times more expensive, depending on the company that you go with. But at least it's available now. If you don't want to use sodium carbonates, Whiten your clothes. You want to go with something that's more widely available. Instead, you can try putting 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of lemon juice in every load of white laundry to whiten your clothes that way instead. So there is an alternative for you. If you want. Let's move on to taboo so me ethically. It's a powder that's extracted from French and Moroccan quarries that confined in many colors. It comes in white, purple, green and brown. It's a type of sepia light cleaning clay that can amazingly absorb 80% of its weight and water. So this clay has phenomenal absorbed of strength so it can degrees and remove stains on dry textiles like leather, suede and furniture by absorbing the fats from butter oil makeup stains. It can also act on wine stains and even very resistant stains. If used in conjunction with not, say, soap to increase its absorptive properties, you can actually heat it for 15 minutes in the oven. That's 15 15 minutes in the oven at 140 F To evaporate any humidity it may be holding well . Its primary use is to act on dry textiles. It can also deodorize, and they used to clean floors and plastics. Make sure not to use it on what surfaces and don't get the clay wet prior to using it. In fact, in terms of long term storage, you want to keep it in a dry, sealed container, and it's a good practice to heat up your claim the oven every couple of years to make sure that it remains dry and effective. Now the clay is available for online purchase in the states, but it goes for a much higher price. So if you wanted something more local, you can see what type of leather cleaning clay is sold in your area. Or you can also see if corn starch will do the trick if you're dealing with an easy stain on a dry textile. 9. UPDATE: Zero Waste Cleaning Ingredients: Hi, everyone. I hope that you have been enjoying this course. When we were filming this course in 2017 many of our ideas were zero waste. But I feel like we hadn't dug deep enough into zero waste options for certain ingredients used in this course. So for that reason, I wanted to update this section for you. Your workbook for this section has already been updated, so make sure to refer to that for tips on getting zero waste ingredients. So for vinegar. At the time, I was using a giant plastic bottle of Hinds vinegar. So I suggest that instead you would get white vinegar package free if possible, and ideally organic to. If book is not available, I would recommend getting organic white vinegar in a glass bottle. This is something that Spectrum offers for Castillo soap. You'll see US unit using Dr Bronner's in this course, I've actually switched to other companies that don't use plastic packaging Now. I was also concerned about Dr Bronner's use of palm oil. After some more digging, I learned that the palm oil they used is growing in Ghana, so it's not in Sumatra or Borneo, which is good for Iran. Italians Good news for ratings whose habitat is being destroyed by palm oil in those two places. So most Casteel soaps, however, will use palm oil source from Sumatra and Borneo. And you may read on some labels that the palm oil it's sustainable, So it'll have an R S p o label. This label means nothing to me because the R S P o allows for deforestation and the enforcement of the rules have been weak. A few months ago, in November 2018 a lot of international pressure led to them strengthening the RSP label so that no deforestation would take place. Yeah, you think I would have done that the first time around, but anyways, that's a great step. But again, the enforcement of this rule is what matters. So it's too early to know if this change will be implemented. So it's really tough to find palm oil free bar soaps. So we went through all of Whole Foods soaps election, and we didn't find a single one that didn't have palm oil. So I turned, etc. And I found Mountain Natural soap sells palm oil free Castile soap and strapped in paper. That's a great option. Otherwise. Another option is Hillary. It's a great zero waste and refill store that sells cleaning products. They don't sell Castiel Bar soap as of yet, but they do have similar bar soaps and all of their products or palm oil free. And in fact, they also sell zero waste hand soaps. If you're interested in filling up your bottles at one of their stations or standing up for their subscription service for the Liquid Casteel soap, we use aromatic internationals soap because it's free of palm oil and is in a glass bottle . They do still usable rap for their packaging, however. As for Mass a soap, I have finally found it plastic free on Amazon, with the same brand matter use fab, and they sell it in cardboard. And if you live in France, the Matthews Fab Shop sells the bars without the packaging and then for a citric acid. I actually use bulk citric acid that I have found both at my local health food store and at zero waste stores for the package citric acid. However, I have not come across it plastic free packaging as of yet black soap. I have been unable to find zero waste. It's always in plastic bottles, and I've never found it in bulk. Same for sodium carbonate, unfortunately. So if I do ever find zero waste alternative cities, I will let you know. I just generally try to get them in the biggest bottle possible in plastic. Unfortunately, so if I find updates for that, let you know, I hope you keep it during the class and season. 10. Questionable Products: Borax, 3% Hydrogen Peroxide, 90 Alcohol: some ingredients that you might have expected to see on my list of ingredients did not make the cut. So here's why. 3% hydrogen peroxide is effective for disinfecting, for whitening and for cleaning. However, it's an irritant. It's very corrosive and its flame bull. It's dangerous if it's mixed with acids. Unlike sodium carbonate, hydrogen peroxide is immediately harmful. When you open the bottle, it starts releasing oxygen atoms, which are very aggressive there, oxidizing for toxic to living organisms. And they're a fire hazard. So if you want to use it, you have to wear gloves. Make sure not to get any into your eyes and make sure not to breathe any in. Since we have other products that are just as effective and far safer, this ingredient didn't make it to our list. Borax or sodium berates is a natural occurring mineral in lakes, and it's a great laundry booster because it eliminates odors and remove stains. In the states, it's touted as a safe green products, So why is it not on my list? It didn't make the cut because it's been classified in Europe is being a carcinogen, a muted gin and a reproductive toxin, it could negatively affect fertility and growing fetuses. In fact, it's illegal to sell it in France for individual use and can only be sold for professional use. There are many ingredients that I listed in the previous section that you can use in its place, like washing soda, sodium carbonate or mass a soap. 11. Houseplants that Clean the Air of Pollutants: our homes are our safe havens, or at least they should be. It turns out that indoor air pollution is often much worse than outdoors, whether you're in the city or in the countryside, and it could be making us sick. Clean indoor air is something I must admit I took for granted at the time they were filming this workshop. I was living in this nontoxic straw bale and Cobb home. I'd spent the summer building and painting this earth and house with materials from the land, and I really wasn't concerned about indoor air pollution. So during my time, living in that home, I didn't worry for a second about the harmful building materials. The paints that adhesives. The setting was also spectacular. It was in the woods by a form and pond at the wonderful ICO Institute in Chapel Hill. It's only when I moved here to the city of Basel, Switzerland, where I'm surrounded by cars and chemical industries that I started getting concerned. I've been spending a lot of time working indoors, so I kind of started to feel sluggish, and I decided to look into what pollutants might be making me feel this way and potentially putting my health at risk. So I decided to add this bonus module to the class with the information that I learned. So to my surprise, a study by the e. P. A showed that the air in our homes is much more polluted the outdoors, regardless of whether we live in the city or in the countryside. Doctor is called sick Building syndrome. Unexplained symptoms of fatigue of eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches, dizziness, nausea associated to spending time indoors. So the causes of these symptoms are often attributed to indoor air pollution, and there are many reasons the air in our homes could be polluted. It can come from cigarette smoke, Radan mold, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide or volatile organic compounds. Vo ces Among the air pollutants that are most commonly polluting our homes are these vo ces . They're hiding in the paint on our walls, our furniture on our food and our everyday products like our cleaners in our cosmetics. So here are a few of those of us used to be aware of and where to look out for them. So the first is formaldehyde at the common indoor air pollutant, and it's a human carcinogen, so overexposure in the home can cause respiratory irritations and you might ask what you will wear. It might be exposed to cancer causing agent. Well, it's present in many household products like grocery bags, disposable sanitary products, paper towels, cosmetics, personal care products, disinfectants, fungicides on our food, German sides, also in construction materials like lose plywood, fiberboard, fire retardants and in our rugs to most significant source comes from pressed wood products that are manufactured with adhesives containing you re a formaldehyde resins. Then there's benzene, also well established human carcinogen. Chronic exposure can result in a plastic anemia where it's basically where your body stops , producing enough new blood cells, so benzine exposure in your home can occur through paint again adhesives and against cigarette smoke. So if you live near a petrol station, that would increase the amount of benzene in your home or if you have a garage entrance from your home, that will also increase the benzene. Try chloral ethylene, or T CE, is another known Christian engine. It's a solvent that's found in certain cleaners, wood stains, varnishes, finishes, lubricants, adhesives and paint removers. Research shows that exposure to TC may be linked to the development of congenital heart defects. I didn't mention this yet, but right after we wrapped up filming this class, I was diagnosed with two rare heart defects and had to undergo open heart bypass surgery to repair them. This was a few months ago, and I'm doing fine. I'm doing great. Thanks for asking. So who knows? Maybe my mom was exposed to high levels of T. C E. In her home or in her water when she was pregnant with me. We don't really know. Toll Ewing is a common air pollutants and its president areas where there is heavy traffic and tobacco use and its founding gasoline paints, paint thinners, adhesives, lacquers and nail polish is one of the many reasons I stopped wearing nail polish a few years ago. But chronic exposure to toll you in can cause fatigue, confusion, general weakness, nausea or even memory loss or loss of appetite. So maybe totally mean is partially responsible for my sluggishness. I mean, I do live right by traffic now with a community that has a lot of smokers in it. I have freshly painted walls in my apartment. Or maybe I'm just sluggish, cause I Miss Christina from Perma crafters who is still under with Carolina. Don't know, um, Xilin is next. It's also an air pollutant that, like TC, is used as a solvent in cleaning products. It's also used in paint and paint thinners and burnishes, and exposure to it can really reduce result in irritability, headaches of your fatigue, depression and much more. And then there's ammonia in air pollutant that you may be exposed to while you're cleaning in your home. It's present and cleaning products like window cleaners or floor polishes, and it can irritate your eyes, your respiratory system and your digestive system. The good news is that certain common house plans can remove these harmful chemicals from the air. It was a 1989 NASA study and a follow up study shortly after where scientists placed house plans in closed chambers with formaldehyde, benzene, try chloral ethylene, Xilin and ammonia. And what they found was that certain plans sequester in their biomass up to 90% of these chemicals in the air within just 24 hours, and their recommendation for cleaner air in our homes is to have one air filtering plan for every 100 square feet were 9 to 10 meter square of using the metric system. So in my case, that's only seven plants for my entire apartment, which is completely feasible. So I'm gonna go over some of these plants and what they are. So first we have the variegated steak plan. The snake plant has really long leaves, which sharp ends on it. And it's an ornamental house plan that's really tolerant of low light conditions and little watering. And it's well suited for a bathroom with little light or the bedroom, because it produces a lot of oxygen at night time. So it filters formaldehyde, benzene, treichl or ethylene styling and toll Ewing. So if you're on the lookout for a snake plan, you can ask your friends. You could take a cutting from the plan to propagate it, but it will take some patients. I make sure to keep it away from your pets. It is toxic if consumed, and so are the other Children Talk about. Next up is red edged Drew Kania. The red edged or Kania leaves are then with red edges, and this house plant does well in low light as well, it doesn't require much watering, so it's native to Madagascar, and it's well suited for offices or homes. And, like the Snake planet, filters all the docs I mentioned, except for ammonia, so it also can be propagated with cuttings. Surprisingly, I was surprised. Toe Find that up. So the weeping fig or fight Who's Benjamin A. Is next. It's a beautiful tree with glossy leaves that can reach about 100 feet tall. It filters formaldehyde, exiling and told you in from the air. Careful, though, because this plant is a common cause for inter allergies, and it should not be around those who are allergic to latex because the leaves contain latex friendly. I want talk about English ivy or Hedorah helix. It's an evergreen climbing plant that's native to Europe and invasive in the States. So we talked about in our class. You know, we use English ivy for laundry detergent because it has a high sapone in content, but little did we know. It actually also filters formaldehyde, benzene and trichloroethylene, exiling Entel Ewing from the air. So when his girl grown in controlled conditions like in pots indoors, it could be a wonderful house plan, and there's really no need to buy because it's so easy to propagate. So if it's common in your area, all you need to do is get a plant cutting, too. Get started to remember not to plant it outdoors. If it's not native to your region, don't encourage it to grow because it will damage the native plants. So those are for examples of air filtering house plans that are perfect for cleaning the air in our homes. So if you're specifically looking for plants, the sequester ammonia, you want to be looking for peace Lily, flamingo lily and Flores chrysanthemum. We also have a list in your workbook of the full 29 air filtering plants that were studied by NASA and which talks about which specific pollutants these guys sequester. So other than bringing these all into your home to improve air quality, you can also a rate your home weekly to let out gases from chemically treated furniture from your walls from your food and so on. And you can also dust your plans weekly with a damp cloth. Eso That's it. I hope you enjoyed your little bonus video and keep enjoying the bus 12. Zero Waste Cleaning Tips: hyper MCR after I wanted to add this bonus video to talk a little bit about waste as a permaculture teacher. One of the principles I teach about is to produce no waste in nature. There is no waste. It's a cyclical system, but the world that we live in has this throwaway culture with waste as an end product. But waste really is an artifact of human existence. Resource is our extracted and sense to the landfill. This produced no ways Permaculture principle asks us to break ourselves out of this culture of obsolescence and consumerism by valuing resource is so in every part of this course, you'll see that we put a lot of value in existing. Resource is we encourage you to use your existing cleaning gear or find secondhand items that are in the way stream to give these guys a second life on. We call on you to ditch single use cleaning gear like paper towels like mop, mop wipes and switch to Onley reusable gear. So we really support repurpose ing, old clothing or household items to craft your own cleaning your as well, and we love to see old spray bottles or old cleaning containers being reused. When it's safe to do so, of course, and we to to the cleaning value of items that would otherwise be discarded, like wood ash or kombucha vinegar or coffee grounds. We help you select products that are composed double that will not contaminate the waterways. So any step to value resource is is a step in the right direction. Of course, we still have to take into account that we live in this linear system, and removing all our activities altogether from the way stream may be idealistic for the time being. Although necessary in the long run and also the more privileges that we're blessed with, whether it's time, money, education, health, location, community, all of these will make it easier to make choices that create less waste. So no matter your situation, I want you to feel empowered to make better choices for your health and for the Earth. Uh oh, no. So the reason that I wanted to make this bonus video is also because I wanted to talk about packaging waste. So when you are selecting the ingredients for your cleaning products, the perfect choice might not always be available to you, and that's okay. Make the best decision based on your specific situation. The ideal option for all of your cleaning ingredients and cleaning gear would, of course, be to have them be free of any sort of packaging. So some of the ingredient options that I share in this course our package for you already like English ivy or wood ash, or use coffee grounds and hopefully lemons as well. But with other products, that may be trickier to find them package free. So when you're buying your vinegar when you're buying your baking soda, your washing soda, citric acid or corn starch, the perfect scenario would be to buy them in bulk. So if you have a bulk store near you, that would be the absolute best option. You would bring your refillable jars and bottles and purchase as much of the product as you want. Eso. If you want to minimize waste, that would be my first hip looking for package free options. If package free options are not available to, you might want to think about whether it the cleaning ingredient or cleaning gear that you need is something that you can make yourself so maybe you need vinegar, but the only available option is in plastic bottles. If that's the case, you can consider making kombucha vinegar or another type of home made vinegar. Or let's say, maybe you want synthetic, synthetic free cellulose sponges, but they're wrapped in plastic. In that case, maybe you want to make it toe washy scrubber from old socks or grow loofa. So, of course, if you're short on time or you're juggling jobs and kids, or if you have a disability, this might not be feasible for you. I'm just sharing the ideal choices in order in terms of what will be the most planet friendly choices. So again, make a decision based on what is feasible for you and your situation, so the next best thing would be glass containers. Glass can be recycled indefinitely, and it doesn't lose its quality over time. So it's one of the best materials to recycle, and it also does not leech out dangerous substances or it doesn't harm marine life. So essential oils, for example, are sold in the last bottles. And that's perfect. Perfectly good option. If you have the choice between vinegar and a glass bottle vinegar and a plastic bottle. The glass bottle would be the better choice. Of course, the game can get complicated. If you have the choice between organic vinegar in a plastic bottle and a glass bottle full of non organic pesticide grown vinegar, so do you choose the pesticide free version that will cause plastic pollution or you risk? Or do you choose the recycled glass version that will cause environmental harm because it was created with pesticides? Sometimes it's a Catch 22. And yet remember that the better choice in these situations is your sanity. Do what you can and don't beat yourself up about it. Sometimes you may have to choose between paper slash cardboard packaging and plastic packaging, so that's the case up for the paper. Packaging paper can be recycled about five times, and then it can be composted at the end of its life. Cycle, of course, doesn't apply to all types of papers, like glossy paper or paper that contains toxic ink in it. But paper is superior to plastic. Ecologically speaking plastic can also be recycled, but not all types of plastic and where you live will dictate what kinds of plastic can and cannot be recycled, so recycling is wonderful. But let's remember that it's a last resort, right, because not it's not a harmless process. It does require energy and chemicals and water to recycle plastic or paper. And like paper, plastic can only be recycled so many times. But the problem is once plastic can no longer be recycled. It takes years for it to decompose. It can take 10 to 20 years for a plastic bag, too decomposed and 450 years for a plastic bottle to disintegrate. So that's why we have so much plastic pollution in our oceans. So paper or cardboard packaging would definitely be the better option here. So with baking soda, for instance, and states will often have the option of purchasing your baking soda, either in a cardboard container or in a plastic container. So in this case, you would choose the cardboard, so you may live in an area that does not have as many options, and vinegar might only come in plastic bottles. So if it's not feasible for you to make your own vinegar, and if there are no zero waste alternatives to vinegar available, then go ahead and buy vinegar in the plastic bottle. There is not always going to be a perfect choice, but choosing vinegar and a plastic bottle over toxic cleaners and plastic bottles is absolutely the better option. So if you need to buy a plastic bottle, maybe you can purchase the largest bottle available and then make sure to reuse it or at least recycle it. I have yet to find black soap in bulk or in a glass bottle, for example. But at least the bottle lasts a very long time before I have to discard it. Not always a perfect option. Some of the ingredient options might be hard to find plastic free. So as much as I love Marseille soap, the ones that are most commonly available are often wrapped in plastic. Casteel soap is often wrapped in paper, which is a better option. But then you have to beware. Beware that some Castiel soaps potentially contained palm oil in it, which is responsible for the destruction of a Ranga Tang habitat, and we're in a Catch 22 again. So do what you can search around you for alternatives. You might find a local soap maker who makes their own package free version of Mass. A sober of Castile soap. And if your soap maker typically packages their soap, you can actually just ask them to specifically for go the packaging on your order. So and then you have some products, like sodium carbonate delgrosso mia clay corn starch in citric acid that might come in a cardboard box. But inside that box you'll find hidden plastic packaging to keep the powder together. So what I would do in that case is decided whether you actually need the products. And if you do a search for alternatives and if there are none in your area, then just make the best choice you can again. There is not always going to be a perfect option, so I hope this bonus video on waste and packaging was helpful for you. Please share any tips that you might have on our online community were constantly thriving to make this cleaning class better for you. So there's always more to learn, and we will keep updating the class as it goes along. So I hope that you keep enjoying the workshop and all season 13. Safety Precautions: there are some basic safety precautions to take into account when it comes to cleaning your home. The good news is that if you're taking this workshop to start making your own cleaning products, you're already taking a huge step towards making your household safer. But they're still common. Sense safety rules to follow. First, keep all cleaning products out of Children's reach. Even if these products aren't harmful, they're not meant to be digested or smeared on your body. Be smart about where you keep them. It's good practice to wear gloves when you're cleaning your home to protect your skin. It's not good for your skin to be regularly exposed to alkaline or acidic cleaning products , even vinegar. Household cleaning products in general should not be used on your skin because they might irritate your skin, since they aren't as fatty as soap specifically made for skin care. You may even be sensitive to essential oils on your skin and whether you're working with washing soda, sodium bicarbonate and citric ads and specifically, definitely wear gloves, protect your face and wash your hands well when you're done, These three ingredients can irritate your skin, and more so than others. If you accidentally get one of these ingredients in your eyes, immediately rinse your eyes with lots of water. Call your care provider. Make sure to properly label your bottles. You don't want your guest to take a chug out of your rice milk container only to discover it was actually home mates. Hope I want you to feel empowered to create your own recipes. Since you now know the properties of the cleaning ingredients, however, there are some elements that should not be mixed together for safety reasons. For instance, sodium carbonate and washing soda should never be mixed with any kind of acidic substance, like vinegar or citric acid and lemon juice. Sodium carbonate should also not be used near sources of heat, either or it could combust. Also, do not confuse washing soda with caustic soda. Caustic soda, which is lie is dangerous and can cause chemical burns. Don't makes vinegar with bleach, either because it could also cause a toxic reaction. Remember not to use 14% acetic acid vinegar and certainly do not breathe in its fumes. If 14% vinegar is heated in terms of essential oils, you never want to use them just on their own. If you're using a liquid mixture, used 20 drops or more of essential oils for seven ounces of liquid like vinegar and water. For instance. Some people have dermal or respiratory sensitivities to different kinds of essential oil, since they're so concentrated, so it's good practice again to put gloves on. The oils also emit volatile organic compounds that may irritate your lungs, so for this reason, you should not overuse them. Stronger oils like cinnamon and clove oils are not adapted for everyday use. Their meant for acute situations were disinfecting a household when your family is sick. Citrus and tea tree oil, however, are gentler oils for everyday use. However, essential oils and tea tree in particular, should not be used to clean animal cages, litter boxes or areas used frequently by your pets. If you have small Children, avoid using essential oils as well, especially on floors, and always make sure to narrate the rooms that you use the oils and to keep your sponges safe for use. You'll want to have a separate sponge specifically dedicated to cleaning anything that holds food or beverages like cookware, dishes and silverware. Keep another sponge specifically for the toilet. Other sponges can be used around the house, but never use a sponge and especially a toilet sponge to clean your dishes. Once you're done using your sponges, you'll want to squeeze them out very well. Rents them with hot water, squeeze them again and make sure they're set to dry and not left to sit in a pool of water . It's good practice to disinfect your sponge every week or so, or else they will just harbor bacteria. You can do so by putting it in the microwave for a couple minutes, but only do so if your sponges what Or it can catch fire and make sure your sponge is not made of metal or synthetic or treated with chemicals, or you'll just end up breathing in toxic fumes. I wouldn't recommend putting a loofa sponge in the microwave, either. If you aren't sure what your sponges made of or if you don't have a microwave and I wouldn't blame you, put it in the dishwasher with your dishes and wash on high heat or wash it on high heat in your washing machine. That's also an option if you want to dispose of your old toxic cleaning products, and you're not so vengeful. You pass these products onto your enemies, then how do you go about getting rid of them safely? Well, the first thing you want to do is read the product's label for proper disposal. There will likely be specific instructions for disposing of oven cleaners or drain cleaners , for instance, as household hazardous waste if there aren't instructions for disposal. The official recommendation is to treat water soluble cleaners like dishwashing soap and laundry soap as nonhazardous waste, mostly because it costs 10 to 15 times more. To dispose off the American Cleaning Institute. Ask you to consider how you would typically use the product to make. A decision about how to dispose of it is generally consider it saved to dispose of dishwashing soap down the drain, for instance, or of toilet bowl cleaner down the toilet. These chemicals will be treated just as they normally would have been by your water treatment plant. If you have a septic system, you should be able to dispose of them in the same way. But it's best to verify beforehand, depending on product. When it comes to powders, however, don't throw out a lot at once as they make clog your dream. If this whole disposal method makes you cringe as much as I do when I think of throwing waste down the drain, I leave it up to you to decide whether you want to treat your old cleaners as hazardous waste and send them all to your hazardous waste disposal center. Maybe in a few years we'll have a workshop on D I. Y. Michael. Remediation for Household Cleaner is where we can use fun guy to decompose the toxins and we'll have a better solution for everyone. 14. Eco-Friendly Cleaning Gear: Before you start making your cleaning products, you're going to need some cleaning supplies as well. First, you'll need basic cleaning equipment that should last a lifetime, or at least a very long time. If you treat it well. If you're starting from scratch, you're going to need a broom, a dust pan, a toilet brush and a vacuum. Even though this one requires electricity, I highly recommend it. If you have Children, these don't need to be purchased. Brand new To get the job done, have a look at your local thrift store, Craigslist or the nearest university campus at the end of the school year to see what's being offered in the spirit of resourcefulness. You can also repurpose clothes, old toothbrushes. A sock will become the perfect piece of fabric to clean nooks and crannies with an old cotton T shirt makes an ideal soft rag. An old toothbrush is the ultimate scrubbing tool to take out stains or crusted on gunk. If you're throwing out toxic cleaning products, you might want to save the bottles that they came in. It's really useful to keep spray bottles, pump bottles and toilet cleaner bottles. Make sure to wash them out really well. Take off any old labels and re label them. If you don't like the idea of potential remnants of old cleaning products lingering in your bottles, this option might not be for you. It's up to you to decide. What about cleaning gear that cannot be easily repurposed or is not as durable. Floor map and sponges, especially, have a shorter life cycle. If you're adamant about keeping a low carbon footprint, you can fashion your own, mocked by cutting a hole in a towel and putting it over an old sweeper mop. Who would have known? Like any mop, you'll have to switch out the mophead every couple of years or so when it shows signs of wear and tear, and you want to say good care of your mop, runs out the dirt and leftover soap after every use, and make sure that doesn't stay damp between cleanings. You can put the towel in your regular laundry load, which might be even easier if you didn't sign up to make your own mop. A simple store bought cotton mouth is the best way to go in terms of smallest carbon footprint. There are also two basic cotton mock models. There is the classic mop with loose fringes. Thes are great for cleaning towel fours, but not so great for wood surfaces over a long period of time because they can carry a lot of water. Then there is the rectangular cotton mop, which is less wet, making it better for wood surfaces and also great for corners due to its shape. Remember, no need to purchase sweeping cloth refills. You can fashion your own with an old towel. You don't need a fancy mop to clean your home. You also want to beware of false advertising. So called environmentally friendly mops that are made out of bamboo are often treated with dangerous chemicals that are neurotoxins and toxic to the environment to create a bamboo viscose, remember, you want to green clean, not be green. Washed sponges are the items you're going to need to replace the most often if you live in a relatively warm climate like North Carolina, where USDA zone six or higher, you can grow your own sponges. Loofa sponges, an Asian fruit that has abrasive fiber is making it wonderful for cleaning around the house or even to exfoliate your feet. You can get a hold of some loofa seeds. Start your things around April or so and make sure that they have a trellis to grow on. And within six months or so, you'll have a loof of mine and a handful of loofa fruits on it. They're different processing techniques for your loofa. One of them is to wait for them to mature on the vine. Then you'll take off their skin, take out the seeds and eventually let them dry in the sun. If you're less of the gardener and more of an arts and crafts person, you can knit your own sponges. Toe washy sponges are wool sponges that you can knits, wash in the washing machine and use for several months. If knitting isn't your forte, there's a simpler to washing model to make. With thick stockings, tights or sex, you'll need a wooden board on which will draw out a 14 centimeter square. I'm going with centimeters guys. You'll space out 20 nails on the periphery of the square. The first ones will be three centimeters from the corners than every two centimeters. Theun cut out your shirt or stockings into 10 rings up to eight centimeters thick. Attach. These brings the nail starting horizontally vertically, weaving your way thin. You unhook a ring from its now and pass it into the next ring will continue a step along the periphery. Every square. The last ring will serve as a hook. Next thing you know, you got yourself into washing. If you want to make more, just keep this wooden board and make some more once you have old socks that are ready to be transformed into two washes. If you're staring at the screen right now thinking to yourself, crystal, what in the world are you talking about? I did not sign up for this. I want quick and easy sponge. There's no way that I'm growing one or knitting one. I want a quick and easy sponge. Well, stay tuned, because this is what you'll want to buy at the store. A vegetable based sponge is the best way to go. This is a sponge that's typically made from wood cellulose, cotton insults to make those holes in the sponges. These have the smallest carbon footprint, and you can check to see whether the wood is sustainably produced and harvested or not look for forest Stewardship Council labels, for instance, as long as it has not been treated with chemicals, this type of sponge will be bio degradable. The loofa sponge can also be purchased as opposed to grown, but might not be within your budget. It's got a fantastic, abrasive quality, but it's not very absorptive, so not necessarily practical to soak up spills. Ideally, you would have both a loofa and a vegetable sponge. Handy synthetic sponges. I would recommend staying away from their made with ingredients derived from petroleum, treated with harsh chemicals. They don't absorb as well as vegetable based sponges, and they're not about agreeable. If they have a scratchy side attached to the softer side, the glue typically will not degrade either. For most of your surfaces, you will not want a sponge with a scratchy side. Anyways, to avoid damaging your services, you don't want to use the scratchy side of sponges on electron ICS, tables, countertops, wood furniture, mirrors, windows, sinks, acrylic tubs and flexible plastics. The Onley circus that could benefit from a scratcher sponge like a loofa would be pans and metallic grills. What about microfibers? Why don't they make an appearance on this list. Micro fiber cloth are synthetic tissues. They're made from petroleum. The fibers are extremely useful for removing all types of filth, but their production is just not sustainable, and it's very hard to recycle them, since they're often made of polyester and polyamide. If you already have microfibers, keep them, take good care of them and use them for services that would benefit most from microfiber cloths like your windows to avoid any kind of skin reaction, it's a good idea to wear gloves. Use reusable gloves supposed to single use gloves. Thick natural latex gloves would do the trick depending on where you live. It might be hard to find gloves that are made of purely natural latex instead of a mix of natural and synthetic. Looking for an FSC label is a good place to start to ensure that their produced under sustainable forest management guidelines, if you're sensitive to latex, are latex gloves that have a cotton interior 15. Intro to Cleaning Recipes and Tricks: Now that we've gone over, the must have cleaning ingredients and cleaning supplies that are safe for you in the least harmful to the environment. I'm going to share some cleaning tricks and recipes with you. So for each room in your house, you'll have a list of your cleaning cabinet essentials. And these are the products that you'll want to pre make to have a steady supply of basic cleaning supplies on hand. So don't worry about pausing the video again and again. To keep up is I walk you through these recipes. All the recipes and tricks that I'll be doing are described in your conscious cleaning 101 workbook. So use this video as a visual guide to help you. So since we've gone over the properties that the basic cleaning greens have, you can also use your common sense to start mixing and matching ingredients to make your own recipes. Just remember that some ingredients, of course, should not be mixed with each other, and you can watch the safety instruction section for details on this. So let's get started. Get excited because you are well on your way to making your home made cleaning products 16. Cleaning the Kitchen (Recipes): Let's start in the kitchen. This is where daily messes happen and the area you will likely be cleaning the most often, so I'm going to walk you through three of the most useful recipes for daily use. These are the ones you're going to want to make in bulk to have on hand whenever you need them. And then, of course, I'll share with you some helpful cleaning tricks with use that you can get ideas for how baking soda, vinegar, lemon and other basic ingredients can be used to sanitize your kitchen space. So let's start with the basics. You want to have clean kitchen services, so to do so, you can simply dilute blacks. Open hot water and keep it in 2 32 ounce spray bottles under your sink and label them. This quantity should last you for a year. Now blacks up is very concentrated, so you don't need much at all. Diluting half a teaspoon to one teaspoon for every cup of hot water is sufficient, so you'll mix 4 to 8 teaspoons of black soap in eight cups of hot water. You fill up your two bottles. You can use this cleaning mixture on kitchen surfaces on the cooker hood. It's safe on ceramic, Hobbs and tiles. You can use it to clean your oven to, and this soap should be your go to for cleaning around the kitchen. Remember, the soap is corrosive. It's an insecticide, and it decreases. It removes stains, and it also makes your services shine. And if you don't want to use black so you can replace it with liquid Casteel. So but the same ratio. If you want to make a vinegar cleaner for your kitchen surfaces instead, remember that you cannot use this vinegar on marble or granite countertops where it will erode it. Next up is washing dishes. You're probably going to do a lot of cooking and eating around the kitchen, so you definitely need an effective dishwashing soap or dishwasher powder. So let's first make dishwashing soap together. We're going to be working with washing soda, so since it's very alkaline, I'm going to protect my skin with gloves. Just prevent potential skin irritation Now. I don't usually wear gloves when I work with washing soda, but it is good practice if you're making enough to stock up for a whole year or you'll want to multiply this recipe by five as listed in your workbook. If you want to make a smaller quantity, you'll mix three cups of water in a pan with two tablespoons of grated Castiel bar soap and 1/4 teaspoon of washing soda. I'm going to place this over medium heat. Once it's nice and homogeneous, I'll take it off the heat and add one tablespoon of liquid Castiel soap. One tablespoon of vegetable glycerin if you want 30 drops of lemon essential oils. Once you've stirred all the ingredients well, you can transfer mixture to a pump bottle. You can wait for it to cool before doing so if you wish, and after 12 to 24 hours or so at room temperature, the mixture will thicken. And if it's not, think things efficiently. Put it in your refrigerator for 24 hours. Will have a lasting effect on the thickness of your soap and as a final touch at 1.5 tablespoons of liquid castile soap to this recipe. If you're making enough for a full year, transfer the excess so to a large bottle like an empty vinegar bottle is perfect for that the Castiel soap has antiseptic and antimicrobial properties to clean your dishes. The washing soda decreases and fights lime scale. Why, you might ask that we add the liquid Casteels opas Well. This is a personal preference because the Castiel so that's liquid, makes her so bubbly. And I like bubbles. The vegetable glycerin is added so that the mixture thickens. It's not my favorite ingredient, since it's made from palm trees, but it is helpful so that you're so doesn't just wash right off your dishes when you're washing with it. If you use a dishwasher instead, you'll want to make a dishwasher powder, so I mix equal parts of citric acid. Finally greeted my say soap Castile soap works well as well and washing soda. Citric acid is anti bacterial, the washing soap greases and the mass A soap disinfects. So if you're making a year's worth of powder, you'll mix three and 1/3 cup of each of these three ingredients and transfer the mix too. Large containers like this one that you'll be storing in your kitchen. So one dose is three tablespoons of the powder, and you'll put it directly into the machines. So to skip the Spencer, and that's it. So the max a soap will stick to the container a bit if it's very hot if it's sitting in a hot room. But other than that, it leaves your dishes looking clean and shiny. It's really great. So once you have those three recipes down, you can transfer them to your bottles, make sure they're labeled and store them out of Children's reach. So you have your main cleaners for your kitchen. It's time for me to share cleaning tricks with you for your kitchen. The tricks that I'm going to share with you are ones you can find in your workbook, of course, and they're meant to act more as a visual aid for you to have a better grasp of how the different ingredients could be used to clean your kitchen. 17. Cleaning in the Kitchen (Tricks): 18. Cleaning in the Laundry Room (Recipes): Let's move on to the laundry room. How do you wash your clothes? Effectively keep them soft, removes stains from them. Make sure that their colors don't fade and get rid of persistent stinky smells. Take care of delicate linens. Maintain your washing machine at the same time. Well, it doesn't have to be all that complicated. I'm going to walk you through some basic recipes and items that you want to make in bulk so that you have my hands when you need them. And that, of course, I'll go over some cleaning tricks with you. So we'll start with an easy project that your inner child, my enjoy. So before standing you're close to the washing machine. It's likely your hamper is getting a little stinky, especially if you have sweaty exercise clothes that you're throwing in the mix. So the trick to neutralize these odors well, it's baking soda. Of course. We're going to take an old pair of stockings. We're gonna cut nine inches off, starting from the foot of the stockings, and we'll fill it up with baking soda about 1/3 of the way up. But before closing it, we're going to add 10 drops of essential oils of our liking for and then tie a knot to secure it. So that's it. You can now throw this hamper ball at the bottom of your hamper to make sure that it smells fresh. The next item that you want to have on hand is a roll on for stains. If you're out and about and you get a stain on your shirt and you don't want to wait before acting on it, you can make a simple roll on soap to apply directly to the stain and pre treat it. Then, once you get home, you can wash your shirt in the washer with your regular laundry as planned, so you'll need a small roll on container and old deodorant. Roland will do the trick to If you manage to open it, you'll put one tablespoon of grated mass, a soap and half a cup of water in a pan and heated the mixture into a sobis fully melted. You'll take it off the heat, then add one teaspoon of vegetable glycerin. Then you'll transfer the stain, removing soap to your roll on container and let the mixture thickened for about 12 hours. You'll label your container, of course, and you're you're all set, so one roll on container will get you through the year. So this brings us to our third item, which is laundry soap, so you could make laundry powder or liquid laundry detergent. It's up to you. Determine what your preferences. So you're going to want enough to get you through a whole year so you don't have to worry about making it again. And again, this means that your mix will be kept in a sealed container. So grab a couple large containers and a pair of gloves. You're going to add to parts of baking soda to parts of washing soda and one part of finally grated Castiel Bar soap. Since we're making enough to have one year's worth, my proportions are going to be 2.5 cups of Castile soap, five cups of baking soda, five cups of washing soda so makes everything together. Seal the lids and label your containers to make it easier for yourself. You're gonna also keep 1/4 cup measuring device right by the containers in your laundry rooms that you can measure out exactly 1/4 cup per load if you're washing white clothes and you want to whiten them, sodium carbonates is what you're going to want instead of bleach. So for every load of white clothes, you'll add just one tablespoon of sodium carbonate. If you wash your whites quite often, I would just keep a bottle of for carbonate there and the tablespoon measure right next to it in your laundry room to add a dose whenever you're doing a load of whites. Oh, something else you might want to have on hand and your laundry room is fabric softener, so you'll need to add just one cup of white vinegar in your fabric softener dispenser so it gets released during the rinse cycle to soften your clothes will also remove odors and residual detergent, and will protect the clothes colors as well. So this soccer shouldn't be used with reusable cloth diaper covers, though, because it can damage the plastic. If you wish to add a pleasant sent to your laundry, you can pre make a spray with the essential oils of your choice mixed in water. And whenever your laundry is done and you're setting it out to dry, you can lightly spray the mixture to your clothes, but you want to avoid delicates and white clothes is that you might be staying more easily . I want to make my year's supply of laundry spray, so I'm using a 15 ounce bottle and adding about 40 drops of lavender oil so this bottle needs to be sealed properly. Or else the essential oils will escape since their volatile. If you use a dryer, you might want to make reusable dryer sheets to have soft clothes that have a pleasant smell to them, so you can fill up a jar with two cups of vinegar and 60 drops of essential oils. Then you'll add several cotton rags or old wash costs is to the jar and let them sit in the liquid so you'll pop these in the dryer. When you're ready to use them, use all of them for bigger loads and fewer of them for smaller loads. So once you're closer dry, put the sheets back in the jar until the next load of laundry. These are the basic cleaning products that you can pre make in book Before talking about other cleaning tips. I actually want to go over three other natural laundry soaps that are worth mentioning and that you might want to test Soto. Wash your clothes. You can use plans that are rich in Sapone. INTs Opponent is a surfactant and a foaming substance substance that's effective at lifting grease, dirt and grime from clothing so you can use soap nuts from the separateness mocha rosie tree. The fruit shell contains Sapone int in it, so you put about five nuts in a cotton bag and put it in with your clothes. In the washing machine, your laundry will smell clean and fresh eggs. Dried fruits also act as a fabric softer, so you can even throw them in your dryer to make your clothes soft and fluffy. They are not ideal for filthy or very state laundry, but they work well for clothes that need to be freshened up. And if you have very dirty laundry, you can actually just throw some baking soda in it as well. And if you're washing white, you can add some sodium carbonate in with your soap nuts. So unless you live at the foothills of the Himalayas, the soap nuts have to travel quite a ways to get to you and Luckily, there are more local options. You can actually make a dick option out of other plants that have sapone intimate, like alfalfa horse trust, not common ivy and soap weed. Go find that invasive common ivy growing on your trees or on your neighbor's house and turn a weed into a laundry detergent. The tea that you're left with is perfect for will close and delicates. It's not super practical to make this detergent because it only keeps for about a month or so, and you should store it in your fridge, although with vinegar, it can also even store for longer than that. But at least the leaves are available year round, so you'll need about 10 common ivy leaves per load. He can start by collecting 60 leaves or so. If your skin is sensitive, you might want to wear gloves to avoid skin irritations from its sap. You can rinse them and then scrunch them in your hands to break them down a little bit. Then you'll put them in a pan and add 4.5 cups of water. Put the pen in your stove and bring the water to a boil and let it. Boil for 15 minutes. Let it cool and sit for about half a day. When you return, squeeze the leaves by hands that their juices drip out into the tea and then filter the tea into a jar for each load of laundry at 3/4 cups of this T, This recipe makes enough for six loads of laundry, and you can remake this recipe every six weeks or so. Unfortunately, it doesn't keep for very long, but it's fun to know about. You could also wash your clothes with ash. Yes, you heard me right. You can wash your clothes with wood ashes from your fireplace. Now I'm not asking you to throw ashes on your clothes, because clearly that's just the opposite of what we want, right? No. Ash has potash in it, or potassium carbonate, which is sometimes used in soap production. The potash is effective at cleaning clothes and most stains, So how does it work well to start, use gloves. Ask ash can irritate your skin. If you're sensitive, you'll need to sift enough ash to get four cups of sifted ash. I'm having so much fun. You'll put this in a large bowl with nine cups of water and let it steep for at least 24 hours. You could mix it occasionally to once it's ready, you can filter the ash water with a coffee filter into a large jar. You can also use a dick auction method if you prefer, but this is just a ZZ. The mixed will keep for several months and will last you about three months if you do laundry once a week, so you'll use 3/4 cups to one cup for load of laundry. So this ash detergent works well with most close. But it's not great over the long term for white clothes, because the colors will say it again. It's another fun recipe to know of. So who knew that you could wash your clothes in all these neat ways? I hope that you try one of these techniques out, and now it's on to your visual guide on tricks for cleaning in the luxury 19. Cleaning in the Laundry Room (Tricks): 20. Cleaning the Bathroom (Recipes): Let's move on to the bathroom. The comfort station. This room could get a lot of unpleasant Odors and humidity from hot showers can result in mold growth. It can get really icky and there if you aren't careful, So let me walk you through some basic cleaning products. You can make ahead of time to keep your bathroom sanitary When it comes to clean, your bathroom is generally easier to prevent a problem instead of addressing one. So after you shower, you want to a rate your bathroom appropriately. Year olds hot, humid air will stay trapped in the shower, and that will encourage mildew and mold to grow on your bathroom walls. The best practice toe have is to spray down your shower walls and shower curtain with vinegar spray after every used to avoid mold buildup like this one that we have here, you're also going to want to leave your shower curtain open after each shower and turn the bathroom. Fan on to increase air circulation and discourage mold growing. So the first item you always want to have on hand is a spray bottle with vinegar in it, and a 32 ounce bottle will get you through a good chunk of the year, if not the full year, So this bottle of vinegar has two purposes. By applying the spray daily or however often you shower, your also deodorizing your bathroom and neutralizing pleasant smells. The next item you want to keep on hand in your bathroom is a sponge and either vinegar or baking soda with the sponge. You want to have these products readily available, so at the moment you spot mildew in your bathroom. You can act on it immediately, so you'll simply soak the sponge in vinegar or humidified the sponge with water and Sprinkle some baking soda on it, and you'll scrub the areas that are beginning to form mildew. Now, if you have a tougher mold problem already between the joints of your tiles, you're going to need a mold fighting mix. This is a mix that you won't be making advance, but rather one that you'll make to address an acute problem. So you'll want to mix three tablespoons of sodium carbonate and add 3/4 of a cup of hot water. 20 drops of essential oils like tea tree, eucalyptus, cloves or cinnamon that fight mold so you'll put this mix and a sprayer and spread the mix on the multi joints. You can let the solution act for several hours and then scrub it with a toothbrush or a scrubbing brush and rinse. You'll also want to make a scouring pace to scrub your bathtub and sink every other week or so is needed. So for this deal makes four parts of baking soda with one part of black soap. And if you don't have black so handy, you can check the handout for other scouring pastes recipes. This recipe is easy to make right before you need it. But if you wanted to make enough for a year, you could technically mix four cups of baking soda with one cup of black soap and transfer it to a large sealed container and label it. Just make sure that it's sealed properly. Now, if you have composting toilets, this next product will not apply to you. You've gone and you've out done us all, and you're amazing. But the next two items that I recommend making in advance that you have a large supply of them are toilet bombs and toilet cleaner. So whereas toilet cleaner is meant for deep cleansing. The toilet bombs are meant for regular maintenance between these deep lenses, so toilet bombs are really fun to make with kids. But remember that you should wear gloves because you're working with citric acid, so you'll need one part of the citric acid, one part of baking soda in one part of corn starch. And if you want to make enough toilet bombs to use one per week, you'll want to use 2.5 cups of each of the ingredients. You'll also need a gallon size sealable food bag and water in a spray bottle. If you wish, you could also add essential oils, and finally, you'll need a mold of any kind. Silicone moulds will be the easiest, but use what you have on hand. Close the bag and massage the powdery mixed together to combine the three ingredients. Once it's mixed, open the bag and spray but of water in it. Seal the bag again. A massage that makes for 15 seconds or so. Open your bag back up, displacing more water inside it, a massage and again while you're mixing, you might notice the sealed bags start to fill up with carbon dioxide. Make sure to let the carbon dioxide out that your bag isn't burst and send powder all over the place. Beat the step until the powder mixture isn't so much a powder anymore, but a clump like this. Once you're mixes ready, transferred to your old Once it's dry, you can put it in a sealed jar right by your toilet. Papa Bomb in to maintain your toilet to keep it clean between cleanses so you've got your toilet bombs. It's time to make your toilet cleaner. You'll want to recycle an old toilet cleaning container. For this, like this, one will ensure that your cleaning product goes exactly in those hard to reach places in your toilet bowl. If you don't have one, you can use a spray bottle, but it's not ideal. So if you're stocking up for a year, makes six times as much as we're going to make today. Just grab a couple empty containers to store the excess cleaner, so I'm mixing one court of warm water, three tablespoons of vinegar and one tablespoon of black soap, and finally, 20 drops of eucalyptus essential oil. If you make a large batch. Pour the rest in a plastic container and label it so you remember what it is when you need to refill your bottle, close your bottle and vigorously shakthi ingredients, so I'm pouring it in the toilet bowl bottle. We'll apply the soap to your toilet bowl and let it sit for at least 20 minutes. Then you can go with your toilet brush and scrub the bull. Once you're done, you can flush. Finally, Another thing you might want to consider is keeping a bee's wax candle in the bathroom. Whenever the bathroom smell is less than pleasant, you can light it if you want. You can even blow it out immediately. The smoke will mask unpleasant odors. You can also using the central goals if user to add on a room of your choice to your bathroom. Well, there you have it. Those are the basic supplies you want to pre make to have on hand in the bathroom to keep it fresh and clean. So it's now time to move on to bathroom cleaning tips. 21. Cleaning the Bathroom (Tricks): 22. Cleaning your Living Areas (Recipes): way. Finally, we arrive at your living areas, areas where you socialize and spend time with family and friends. It's important to keep those spaces inviting, so I'll walk you through the cleaning products you can pre make to have them on hand whenever you need them. And then all share cleaning tricks with you again for cleaning around the house. So we're going to start with the first recipe that we're going to make in books that you have it on hand for the rest of the year. And that is the multi purpose cleaner that you can use around the whole house. So it's one part vinegar for parts water than lemon or tea tree essential oil. So seven drops for one cup, so you'll fill up 1 to 2 old 32 ounce spray bottles with this picture and label them you will most likely be using a lot, so this cleaner is suitable for all services except for marble and granite. So since I'm making enough for two bottles, I'm mixing six cups of water with 1.5 cups of vinegar and adding around 50 drops of lemon, a central oil, so the next thing that you'll want on hand because you'll likely use it A lot is floor cleaner this one you won't need to make in advance. However, you will want to make your life easier by keeping a bottle of black. So Pandey and writing down the recipe for the floor cleaner on the bottle. Remember, black soap is very concentrated, so you don't need very much at all. You can dilute just two tablespoons of black soap in a bucket of warm water. The black soap is ideal for your floors because it will make them shine. So use the soap with a mop and you're all set, so you'll likely want to clean your windows several times a month as well. So for this, the recipe is very easy. All pre fill one or two spray bottles with one part vinegar and one part water and label them window cleaner. If you have old micro fiber cloth lying around, you can use those. Otherwise, newspaper is actually very effective. So the next recipes that you'll want to make an advance art air fresheners. So here are three types you can make. You can put 10 drops of tea tree Orlin water in a spray bottle like this one and spray it before guests come. Or you can use a vaporizer and make your own liquid mix for the vaporizer. What you'd want to do is take skins of Citrus fruit, eucalyptus leaves, rosemary and thyme or peppermint leaves whatever you have, and put them all in a pin with water and bring it to a boil. Leave the aromatic plants to boil for 15 minutes than filter the dick auction and put it in your vaporizer. You can conserve what you don't use right away in the fridge or the freezer. You can also just use store bought essential oils in your vaporizer. Don't overuse that there. Remember that the oils emit volatile organic compounds that can irritate your lungs. And remember also that Children and pets are especially sensitive to certain types of essential oils, like tea tree. Or you could make a potpourri by filling a bowl with pieces of rose petals. Lavender flowers meant leave skins of Citrus, cedar, rosemary and whatever else you have on hand. You can dehydrate the plant material in a dehydrator, in your oven or in your car on a sunny day. Place the dried pieces in a nice plate. Horrible. You can sprayed occasionally with essential oil or water mix. So as you can see, you have quite a few options to make your home smell welcoming and fresh. So nice. Finally, the last thing that you may want to make in advance for your home is would polish. It's wax for your would. You will want to melt four tablespoons of bees, wax one cup of olive oil in a double boiler, and once it's melted, you'll add two tablespoons of black soap. So as soon of this homogeneous you'll pour your hot mixture into a glass container. All you have left to do is seal it up, label it and treat your wood furniture. So that's it for your pre made recipes on two tricks for cleaning around the house. 23. Cleaning your Living Areas (Tricks)) : 24. Thank You: Thank you so much for watching our conscious cleaning 101 workshop. I hope that this is motivated you to start making your own non toxic cleaning products from scratch at home. Remember, they can always refer to your workbook for information on ingredients, on recipes, on tricks and on recommended year and safety instructions. So I hope to see you again for future workshops on nifty skills for self reliance, have fun preparing your supplies and make sure to get your husbands, your wives, your kids to join in on cleaning. Sadio unit ISS import onion and in most regions, a cool often say happy cleaning. 25. Our Story: Hi, I'm Chris itself. And then we've seen and we are the premier drafters from a crafters is an online school that offers courses on environmental topics you wish you had learned about in school growing up, like how to reduce your exposure to toxins in your home, how to care for the environment by reducing your Trash or your waste. And probably most importantly how to cut through the greenwashing BS. Then lookup symbol is born out of a friendship between myself and we sell. We may have a beakers or 9A I2, the piazza in Burma culture that we saw with teaching. And I'm an environmental educator with a background in natural resources management, sustainable development, permaculture and urbanism. And I was teaching this eight week permaculture class there. And we were introducing topics like natural building, worm composting and foraging, and permaculture is an ethical Design System for sustainable human culture. And it was created as a response to Earth's diminishing resources and energy and had never heard of permaculture OWN SU, much thoughts to environmental topics. I come from a very different world. I used to work in business management and middle. And when n mess this up and just key, I need to turn out and we had so much in government. It's true the moment Christina step foot in the class, she had this infectious smile and it was just impossible not to get close to her as she's also this incredibly creative DIY lover. She was constantly coming up with new crafting project. It's really inspiring. Chrysostom, a butcher glass, changed how I view the word. She shared her fat that opened my eyes to environment, that crisis. But noting away that I left me hopeless, it encouraged me to get out of my comfort zone to find creative solutions to environmental problems until even for positive change. Not for perfection. Crew cell made environmentalist and soy inclusive people of all backgrounds. As you can see, that's initials promotion for boasted environments are crisis, makes so much sense. Your lists no, going back. And after that class, we decided to combine forces and share our permaculture and crafting skills through online classes that would be available to anyone anywhere in the world. So now we offer courses on growing sprouts and micro greens at home on green cleaning minus the green washing BS on 0 waste living and how to reduce your trash. And following the Zero Waste theme, we also teach about Zero Waste menstruation, stairways, body carrying cosmetics and herbal remedies for common ailments as well. He feels so grey fur further, sponsor first courses on glory in Luke's become weights develop new ones for you that can fermentation as the Ysom eco-branding and so much more so thank you so much for being on this adventure with us. We hope that you'll keep enjoying. Our blog posts are classes or online resources and all that good stuff. Do you send these in?