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Hold onto your hats for what is undoubtably the most exciting thread of the day...
Our under sink cupboard is rammed with 90% used general household surface cleaning sprays. In a bid to reduce clutter and also plastic waste I am about to go buy a gallon of concentrated cleaning fluid (I told you it would be exciting!). But I want to avoid my house smelling like the toilet in the dodgy local pub (looking at you Aldi Bergamot hand wash).
So what concentrated cleaning fluid are you all using that will both make Greta happy and also win me brownie points at home?
Thanks
Doesn't the maid take care of that sort of thing?
Find your local refill shop and go and see what they have?
Cost of living crisis means we had to let go the maid and gardener sadly. Furthermore my Valet is telling me it's not in his contract to clean and is working to rule unfortunately, the belligerent swine.
Ecover do a 150ml bottle that makes 1500ml
We use Ecover, from the local refill shop
I use one tab for most of my general cleaning needs, not sure if you can get it in the UK widely yet. One tablet makes 750ml of cleaner.
We’ve been using Ocean Saver for a while now, smells nice, you can get the refill drops pretty much anywhere including supermarkets & Amazon.
www.ethicalsuperstore.com
www.biggreensmile.com
Mini review of 'add water' products:
https://moralfibres.co.uk/category/home-garden/natural-cleaning/page/8/
from the local refill shop
C'est ou?
For you I'd guess it's in New Mills - Millers Refillers. Really helpful in there - good place to go and not just for cleaning products. Herbs, spices etc etc.
Regarding Ecover - I'd suggest checking who it's owned by and verifying any claims to be as green as it claims.
But that's just me being cynical.
That place does loads of other cleaning products though.
We use Smol, and white vinegar is very useful for many cleaning tasks.
White vinegar is brilliant, I buy 20 litres at a time!
Surely white vinegar will just make my house smell like a chippy?
Never heard of refill shops. (I live a sheltered life)
Surely white vinegar will just make my house smell like a chippy?
Nope, it disappears quickly. Use it for cleaning the washing machine, make my own fabric conditioner with it along with essential oil, gets rid of scale on the shower head and hose, ditto dishwasher thingies, make my own daily shower cleaner with it using essential oil(s), use it when making my own loo cleaner, can get rid of slime on the patio along with using a hard brush. 20 litres for around £18 delivered.
More on white vinegar:
https://moralfibres.co.uk/everything-you-need-to-know-about-white-vinegar-for-cleaning/
Interesting thread. I've been cynical about this stuff for a while. Like, we have kitchen cleaner in the kitchen and bathroom cleaner in the bathroom. Surely what you need there is "cleaner"? (See also the 47 near-empty bottles that are variously foot cream / face cream / body cream / hand cream...)
My OH is obsessed with anti-bacterial wipes, she gets through a heroic amount. And they're shit, they leave anything remotely shiny a horrible smeary mess. There's a spec of dust on the glass coffee table, she'll take an anti-bac wipe to it and I'll have to spend ten minutes afterwards with paper towels buffing all the residue off it because it looks like she's just washed it with mud. And exactly how much bacteria do we suppose there is on a mirror? None in our house that's for sure, shame you can't see through the bastarding thing after she's done 'cleaning' it.
Surely white vinegar will just make my house smell like a chippy?
Vinegar a just weak acid (acetic acid). You could do much the same with citric acid instead of vinegar and it'd smell nicer.
It's a woman-thing Cougar, we're alwys interested in the newest super-duper product that we need in our lives cos it's better than what has gone before. Seriously, anti-bac wipes are very environmentally unfriendly and a spec of dust never hurt anyone!
Citric acid does have a smell that can be disguised with essential oil, in my experience.
A recipe for daily shower cleaner would be handy. I've tried the refills but mixed with our hard water it just seems to turn in to spray on limescale.
we’re alwys interested in the newest super-duper product that we need in our lives cos it’s better than what has gone before.
Plus, marketing.
If washing powder was "new and improved" every time it claimed to be new and improved, I can only conclude that in my gran's day the stuff actually made your clothes dirtier.
A recipe for daily shower cleaner would be handy. I’ve tried the refills but mixed with our hard water it just seems to turn in to spray on limescale.
Refills (or vinegar as above) with bottled water? Not the absolute best eco / cost wise, but a huge bottle of cheap supermarket water would still be better than regular products.
Would vinegar not break down the water hardness?
A recipe for daily shower cleaner would be handy. I’ve tried the refills but mixed with our hard water it just seems to turn in to spray on limescale.
Hard water here too. Just add essential oil to a spray bottle containing undiluted white vinegar, personally I would avoid anything citrus in case of staining. Something like pine needle is nice. I spray, wipe glass and tiles then dry off with a separate cloth. When the bathroom has a deep clean, I use a glass bottle spray of citric acid diluted in warm water along with an essential oil. This is used only on the glass.
Plus, marketing.
If washing powder was “new and improved” every time it claimed to be new and improved, I can only conclude that in my gran’s day the stuff actually made your clothes dirtier.
So true!
Smol is quite good for reducing packaging. You get a set of spray bottles with your first order then they send you tablets, one per bottle, that make up the cleaning fluid. You can pause the sub if you start to accumulate too many.
Vinegar isn't a universal cleaner, it's an acid. So it's corrosive to start with, but it'll perform certain functions like dissolve limescale or hard water residue. It doesn't break down fat i.e. food grease. I have found that it helps slightly cleaning up 'dried' grease which is actually polymerised (I think) cooking oil residue, but only a bit and it's still 90% elbow grease. Citric acid is better but be careful because it's a lot more acidic than vinegar:
https://keeperofthehome.org/vinegar-myth-vinegar-great-natural-cleaner/
Baking soda is a base, and hence does break down fat. But don't mix with vinegar as I've seen some people suggest as you'll get fizzing and a solution that is neutral and won't do anything.
Most cleaners are surfactants, like plain old soap, so they work by binding to the dirt or grease particles in whatever you are cleaning:
https://www.ipcol.com/blog/an-easy-guide-to-understanding-surfactants/
I have suggested Smol, but to be honest I get similar results in the bathroom if I just put soap on a rag. The cheap 59p for 5 bars stuff from Asda. So that's where I'd go if I wanted to save money or to stick it to Big Chem. Except I think that they are also the people who make the cheap soap.
Find your local refill shop and go and see what they have?
This if you have to buy branded products...
White vinegar is brilliant, I buy 20 litres at a time!
This if you want to save a chunk of money 5ltrs is about £4 at my local wholesaler
Interesting thread. I’ve been cynical about this stuff for a while. Like, we have kitchen cleaner in the kitchen and bathroom cleaner in the bathroom. Surely what you need there is “cleaner”?
Well yes - we have kitchen cleaner, bathroom cleaner and general cleaner. But they are different. Method bathroom cleaner has something quite tangy in it and tbh rather unpleasant smelling, I think it's acidic because limescale is the problem in bathrooms. However grease is more likely to be the problem in kitchens, so I can see that there'd be different requirements. But most likely pretty marginal. In my general experience cleaning difficult things abrasion and agitation do most of the work.
From the article:
Formulated cleaners usually contain four basic elements: surfactants, hydrotropes, builders and carriers. Hydrotropes are chemicals that keep the otherwise incompatible surfactants and builders stable in a solution. The carrier is either water or a solvent. These elements work together to create mechanical actions to remove soils. The end result is a product that can attack dirt on surfaces with a variety of cleaning mechanisms including emulsifying, lifting, dispersing, sequestering, suspending and decomposing soils of various types. The type of surfactants used in a cleaning product largely determines which soils they will be best at removing.
So yeah, different cleaners are best for different dirt, but I reckon probably only slightly.
Another smol user, trying to reduce the number of sprays in the cupboard under the sink, and also moved into a house with a septic tank so trying to eliminate bleach and anti-bac products. I like the idea of smol but tbh I’m not over-impressed by the effectiveness - the glass cleaner particularly seems to be a lot less effective than Windex. I did invest in a 5L bottle of Ecover toilet cleaner that lives in the garage and is used to refill smaller bottles as required. #living-the-dream
Been using the little Cif refil jobbies. There's more that can be done though. I have used some general purpose cleaner that I use for cleaning the interior of my car which cleans just as well if not better than supermarket stuff.
Find your local artisan, vegan friendly, refill shop and buy the ones hand crafted by topless virgins.
We get multi surface cleaner (generic flash liquid) from the local refill shop and then dilute it for kitchen spray. Works more or less the same as the Dettol that used to be preferred by those in the house with and opinion on this.
This plus wipe with a dry cloth kills bacteria,leaves little residue and the cloth can be washed for reuse once it gets a bit hacky.
Tried a Cif refil and it was violent orange and smelled strong.
If you go to a refill shop they sell everything by weight so you can try a small amount before committing to a gallon of something that turns out to be not to your taste.
We now buy hand soap in a refillable 5 litre container from the same refill shop. Again you can try a small amount first to check the flavour is not something horrific like the one described up above. For the last year and a half we managed only to buy new bottles from the supermarket a couple of times when pumps broke and we needed new ones.
The only issue with the refill shop is that they sell chocolate coated cranberries which are too addictive.
Edit: @Drac - if you need that fantasy to get you using a refill shop then crack on but might be a bit too much over sharing 😉
👍
C’est ou?
As above, miller's refillers n New Mills
Or in Marple, there's Marple Health and Lentils & Lather (who also have a branch in Didsbury)