Today’s post is a guest post by Laura Trotta. Laura is an experienced environmental engineer, holds a Masters of Science degree in Environmental Chemistry and founded the multi-award winning eco-parenting business Sustainababy.

After a long, cold winter, it’s human instinct to want to clean up our bodies for the warmer months ahead.

Salads and smoothies take the place of comfort food, and inside activities are replaced with walks and other outdoor pursuits.

It’s also a common time to get the cleaning urge. Ok, so perhaps it’s not as strong as the third trimester nesting instinct, but it’s still there nonetheless.

The urge to spring clean.

I remember my mother’s spring cleaning frenzies when I was a child. She’d wash all the curtains, scrub all the windows and flyscreens and wash the carpets. She’d even go through all our drawers and turf out any clothing that was too small or worn out; not a square inch of our home was left untouched.

This was the 1980’s and 1990’s and mom, like most women, used the vast array of commercial cleaning products that were readily available. Chlorine bleach, multipurpose sprays, mould cleaners, heavy duty detergents for the carpets. She used them all.

And who could blame her?

Like all women in that era, she was constantly marketed to that a good home was a squeaky clean home, and the best way to a clean home was with x, y and z cleaning product.

Not too much has changed in the past 30 years. Cleaning products still dominate daytime television advertisements and we’re spoilt for choice when browsing the cleaning aisle in our local supermarket, however we’re starting to cotton on that commercial cleaning products may not be all they’re made out to be.

In fact, indoor air pollution has been ranked by the US EPA in the top five environmental risks to public health and some of the main contributors to poor indoor quality are formaldehyde and VOCS emitted from chemical cleaning products.

Degrading indoor air quality is just one of the many health and environment impacts of commercial cleaning products too; they’ve been linked to asthma, eczema and neurological problems including Autism Spectrum Disorders.

These days it’s pretty hard to totally avoid chemicals; they’re all around us in the air we breathe, water we drink and bathe in, and food we eat.

We can, however, take many steps to reduce chemicals in our home and make a difference, and the products we choose to clean our homes with, is an obvious place to start.

This spring, if you feel the urge to give your home a decent once over, try the following tips in place of your usual home cleaners:

5 Spring Cleaning Tips:

1. Windows

Clean your windows and mirrors with a 50:50 mix of white vinegar and water instead of Windex.

2. Stainless Steel

Clean your stainless steel appliances with white vinegar and then polish with olive oil when dry. They will look brand new!

3. Carpet Refresher

Add a few drops of your favourite essential oil to 1 cup baking soda and mix well. Sprinkle on your carpet, leave for an hour or two (or longer) and vacuum up. Your carpet will smell divine!

4. Furniture Polishing

Polish your wooden furniture with a mixture of ¼ cup of olive oil, ¼ cup white vinegar and 10 drops lemon essential oil. Apply to a microfiber cloth and wipe wooden surfaces clean.

5. Two Plants To Improve Indoor Air

Improve your indoor quality with an indoor plant such as the Spider Plant (Chlorophytum comosum) and Golden pothos (Scindapsus aures). They are effective in absorbing benzene, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide and xylene from the air.

Alternatively diffuse oils such as Young Living  – Thieves or Purification blends in your home. Thieves Oil, in particular, kills airborne mould spores, bacteria and viruses.

Exercise, eating clean and cooking from scratch is only part of the puzzle to exceptional health and well-being. Cleaning up our homes and our environment is the other major piece of the puzzle.

If breaking up with chemicals in your home has been on your TO-DO list, I’d love you to join my FREE Home Detox Training Series. A clean, healthy home without the toxic chemicals will soon be yours to enjoy.

It’s FREE to sign up!
To get it directly in your inbox click here.

Spring Cleaning the Natural Way is easy with these DIY recipes and tips. Clean top to bottom without toxic chemicals.

About the author:

Laura Trotta is an environmental engineer, eco-living expert, founder of online eco-parenting resource Sustainababy,  and the creator of the Home Detox Boot Camp. She loves bushwalking and scuba diving and lives with her husband and young sons in Outback South Australia (she obviously scuba dives on holidays only!).

This post may contain affiliate links, which help to support the costs of maintaining the Honest Body website. Thank you.

2 thoughts on “Spring Cleaning the Natural Way”

  1. I’m sorry if I misunderstood something. I did not see a FREE home detox training series at the link above. Were you referring to the Home Detox Boot Camp?

    1. Melanie Christner

      Hi Laurie,

      Thank you for your question. The link has probably been expired, as the FREE home detox training was for a limited time. I would guess that it will come around again though.

      Thank you,
      Melanie

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