Expat, or anyone else who makes potions, help please? I am a bleach fiend and I want to stop!

[Lact8]

I must confess to being a bit handy with bleach.

I'd like to stop and try something more natural and I think I've seen expat referring to her potions and others who use essential oils etc to clean their homes.

I'm running out of cleaning products and due to go shopping. Please give me some ideas for what I can buy instead.

I use a kitchen spray and bleach to clean the kitchen

Polish in the rest of the house

Bleach in the bathroom

We're landscaping our garden ourselves so the kitchen is getting filthy due to traffic in and out of the house. The bathroom is also bogging because we're shedding mud and cement dust in there every night too. So far, bleach is the only thing that is getting everything gleaming again

Please help!

TIA

I'll keep bumping this b/c I'm away from home and my two potion 'Bibles' - Ann Berthold-Bond's 'Better Basics for the Home', which is worth its weight in gold, and Kim and Aggie's 'How Clean Is Your House'.

I don't own or use bleach myself.

I do use lots of tea tree, sweet orange, rosemary, thyme and lavender oils, however.

I also order bicarb of soda by the 5kg tub from www.justasoap.co.uk, and buy white vinegar by the 5L jug from a Chinese mini-supermarket.

I also use Bio-D multi-surface cleanser. Mixed w/bicarb of soda to clean the bathroom.

And Bio-D furniture polish.

The Kim and Aggie surface cleanser for the kitchen. I've posted the recipe for it here before, but will repost it b/c it really does work and is easy peasy to make up.

Free yourself from bleach!

Thanks expat

Are there any oils I really need to avoid while bfeeding?

Off to search internet for the books

I don't need the bleach
I don't need the bleach
I don't need the bleach

There's also a chat forum on Janey Lee Grace's Imperfectly natural woman website which might have some info.

Hmmm. Whilst pregnant you can't use thyme or rosemary, but bfing . . .

I get my oils here:
abbeybotanicals

I've tried other places, but this guy's oils really are top quality and good value for money.

here it is! kim & aggie's surface cleanser:

500mL water
2 tblsps lemon juice
.5 tsp washing up liquid
1 tblsp bicarb of soda
1 tsp borax

Mix. I do it in a bowl b/c it fizzes. Put in clean spray bottle.

I add a few drops of sweet orange and tea tree oils, too, for added scent.

Saw a recipe for cleaning stuff on brocantehome.com a while ago too.

what do you bleach in the bathroom?

Probably the toilet, south.

Dunno.

I have a pair of gloves especially for the toilet. i squirt it w/soapy water and shake in some bicarb, grab some kitchen towels and clean it all up.

Soap and water goes a long way towards killing germs.

i hardly use bleach at all, though i have to use toilet cleaner with limescale remover a bit, and just scrub it! the hard water is a problem here

Thanks everyone!

I picked up some spray bottles at the supermarket today. And some tea tree oil too.

I'm off to a festival tomorrow so I'm hoping someone there will be selling oils.

I just ordered Kim & Aggie's Cleaning Bible too.

And I didn't buy anymore bleach either!

southeastastra, I use bleach in the bathroom on everything, the tiles, the toilet, the doors, the window frames, around the shower cubicle (but not in it, I did once and the fumes were horrendous )

I don't feel that things are properly clean unless they've been bleached so I need to re-train my thoughts on that one, but I've been reading about the different oils available on the Abbey Botanicals website and I'm thinking tea tree may become my new bleach!

Thanks again everyone

I highly recommend 'Better Basics for the Home' by Anne Berthold-Bond. It really is the biz for homemade cleansers and the like!

I no longer buy perfumes - they never lasted on me, anyway - I used some of the oil blends on Abbey Botanicals site and another site. They don't use animal or petrol-based products.

Mix w/a bit of jojoba oil and bring on the complements.

I tried looking for that book online but no joy.

On my 2nd bleach free day here and not shaking...yet

Couldn't make it to the festival so looks like I'll be getting oils online when dc are in bed

My real test is going to be this evening, dp and his grandad are currently breaking up concrete with a jack hammer outside the kitchen. They've been there all day. I've just got in and they've been doing it with the windows and door open, dust everywhere

(and its def nicer having hands that smell of tea tree instead of bleach!)

Lact8 - Amazon (UK) have the book for £8.79, but only 2 left in stock (more on the way it said).

Thanks JackieNo

I looked on there last night find it, I'll try again and watch my spelling this time!