Clean your bathroom without toxic chemicals!

Have you ever read the warnings on the back of cleaning products? What about the ingredients? It all sounds scary and, worse yet, it’s bad for your health. But most people feel, as I do, that to thoroughly clean and disinfect the bathroom, toxic chemical cleaners are the way to go. However, as Washington contemplates tougher regulations on household cleaning products and more evidence points to a correlation between household cleaning products and food and cancer, we must rethink cleaning to make it safe for us and the environment. environment.

I have seen many dirty bathrooms and bathtubs. When I need to clean tough water stains and soap buildup from the tub, I reach for vinegar, borax, and baking soda. Vinegar is a natural disinfectant and removes many water stains. For really tough water stains and grime, I use a cocktail of a paste made from borax, baking soda, and vinegar. I recently cleaned a bathtub that hadn’t been thoroughly cleaned in about 6 months. The fixtures had hard water buildup and the tub, which had been refinished several years earlier, was discolored from children’s toys rubbing against it.

I started by mixing about 1 cup of borax and 1 cup of baking soda with 1/4 cup of vinegar in the bottom of the tub. Next, I took a regular scouring pad, dampened it with water and dipped it into the borax, baking soda and vinegar paste and started scrubbing. I repeated the process until the entire bathtub was covered with the cleaning cocktail. In some areas, like the fixtures, I worked longer because they were water stained and hard water collected around them. Then I rinsed the tub with water. This all took about 30 minutes and after that, the tub looked brand new, the fixtures were chrome again, and best of all, no fumes! All of these products can be easily purchased at any local supermarket on the cooking island.