I hadn’t planned to write an entire post on natural cleaning products. In fact Method’s Daily Kitchen cleaner was just one possible element of August’s Healthy Haul post.
But when I laid out the potential items to shoot for the post, this product sparked a discussion among team Rock My Style on the subject of cleaning, ironing (the majority of us don’t, or at least do as little as possible) and even vacuum cleaners (yes, really). Anyway, we decided that natural cleaning as a subject was worthy of being something bigger than one fifth of a Healthy Haul round-up.
I’ve been going down the natural cleaning product route for quite some time now, switching out my washing up liquid by a well known brand for Ecover several years ago. Then I discovered Method, who make non-toxic, environmentally-friendly cleaning products that smell of lovely natural things, unlike the headache-inducing chemical aroma that traditional cleaners often have.
Slowly, over time, I’ve replaced my old cleaning products with Method’s version, starting with the Bathroom Cleaner (for use on all bathroom surfaces, smells of bergamont, citron, eucalyptus and mint), followed by Squirt and Mop Wood Floor Cleaner (works like a dream, smells of almonds, which is a good thing – I like almonds), then Glass (makes my windows sparkle, smells of peppermint) and, most recently, Daily Kitchen (leaves my kitchen as clean as any of the chemical products I used to use, smells of clementines).
I’m not sure why it took me so long to replace my traditional kitchen cleaner with the Method one. I think perhaps I was indoctrinated over many years by all those adverts which suggest that germs will still linger on your worktops unless you use their product that’s full of ingredients I can’t pronounce. Whatever, I’m happy I finally made the switch. The products are admittedly a little more expensive than other brands, but their lovely smells make cleaning a much more pleasant experience, they’re less harmful to the environment and I’m (mostly) happy with the results.
There is just one problem with my natural cleaning routine. The water in London is famously hard, leaving tough-to-remove limescale residue behind on bathroom surfaces, taps and kitchen appliances. As hard as I scrub sometimes my natural cleaning products aren’t always up to the job of removing every last bit. And don’t get me started on whatever’s in the water that discolours the white grout between the bathroom tiles.
In my battle against limescale I’ve tried fixing lemon halves to the taps and leaving them for a couple of hours. Which kind of works, if they don’t fall off, which sometimes they do. I’m at a loss as to what to try next. I really don’t want to go back to the chemical-packed products I used to use, but I want my kitchen and bathroom to be sparkling clean. Come back Kim and Aggie, I need you!
Is anyone else using natural cleaning products? Are there any you’d recommend, particularly ones that are tough on limescale? Tried and tested natural tricks I can try? Or do I just need to scrub harder?! As ever leave a comment below.
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Hello Miranda, try soaking paper towels in vinegar and wrapping around the taps for several hours, preferably overnight, add more vinegar if the towels dry out. Use a old toothbrush to remove after, you can add some baking soda on the toothbrush to add an abrasive. I have had success with this! I am a great fan of Method too! although not all supermarkets stock it where I live unfortunately. Hope this works for you
Trying this tonight, thank you so much for the advice Lesley! Method products are great aren’t they? I’m lucky, I can get hold of most of my favourite products in Westfield, which is just around the corner from me.
White vinegar. Dab it on and the limescale’s gone.
(Goodness I should have been in advertising)
You’re a poet and you didn’t know it Cat! Thank you so much for the tip, trying this today, for sure, I will not be beaten by limescale!
Oh I love a good cleaning product, I too switched to Method a few years back – I love the clean fresh fragrances and the fact that I know I’m not filling my house with nasties (although I still bleach the loos, can’t give up bleach I feel) A big investment I made a few months back was to buy a steam cleaner. It wasn’t cheap (around £100 if I remember correctly) but my goodness can the little beauty leave my home sparkling using nothing but water! My floors are gleaming and it has a nifty little hand held brush attachment which you can use to blast stains, clean up your grout lines and remove pesky lime scale around your taps/shower heads. Amazing. You can also use it to clean your oven, although I haven’t tried that – oven cleaning, along with ironing, falls into my ‘will not do’ category. (There is a wonderful company called Cookerburra that will come out and leave all of your ovens, hob, extractor looking like new for the price of a pair of shoes. And I’d sacrifice a pair of shoes for that any time!). Right, I’m off to steam my floors now, all this cleaning talk has inspired me!
Ooh, I like the idea of a steam cleaner, I think I need one in my life! And Cookerburra sounds brilliant, thanks for sharing Georgina!
This steamer sounds absolutely amazing! What type/brand is it? We are buying a house and with it comes more cleaning so I can use any help I can get!
And I’ve heard so much about Method, unfortunately it’s hard to get in Germany, so I will try amazon…
These sound great. Did you get them from the Stratford Westfield Miranda? Which shops sell them? x
Yes, Stratford Westfield Sian! I’ve found them in Waitrose and John Lewis before. x
I love Method products too! And I was also going to suggest a steam cleaner for those tough bits. We have the X5.
I so agree with you about the chemical and toxic products we use, I have been thinking about buying some natural cleaning products for some time now especially with a baby in the house. When my husband cleans the bathroom, the products make us cough which surely is not a good thing. HOWEVER the natural products are just too expensive! We can’t stretch our budget. Same for the shower gel, hand soap, shampoo etc. So unfair that these products are not accessible for poor people!!!
I agree! I would love to use Method and Ecover for everything but can’t really stretch the budget. Healthy stuff it seems is mostly for the well off, fruit and vegetables and healthy foods cost way more than cheap freezer rubbish – no wonder this country is so unhealthy!
Sorry that was a bit of rant!
It is a shame that these things are more expensive than the other brands. I definitely plan to follow Claire’s lead a couple of comments down and try bicarb of soda, vinegar and so on, perhaps not every time I clean, but even by alternating, it would make the Method products last longer.
I need to try these. I have limescale on our upstairs bathroom tap (was left there by previous owners) and Cillit Bang (which burns my fingers by the way, goodness knows what’s in it!) doesn’t even budge it!
It’s bugging me so much that I’m fully prepared to just replace the tap, haha!
Haha I had the same rant with my husband the other day, I would love to eat clean, buy the fruits and vegs from the local market and use natural products for everything (House, body wash, food etc) but we would need to earn much more money. How is that normal that when you can’t afford it, you have to have the cheap tasteless and full of pesticide fruits and vegs from cheap supermarkets and the chemical products because there is an offer on which means you can have 2 for 1£ ?
They are undeniably expensive Marine, I look out for offers on natural products (cleaning products and shower gel, hand soap, shampoo etc) and snap them up when I see them. I also ask for natural beauty goodies for my birthday as they’re the kind of treat I often deny myself but love to receive as a gift!
I mainly use Ecover and Method – I don’t like the idea of using harsh chemicals from a health or an environmental perspective. Plus, when you look into anti-bacterial vs normal soap/cleaning products, most of it is just a marketing tool. I’ve been looking into ‘green cleaning’ a lot more recently as I suspect that having loads of different bottles for different things is not really that necessary and definitely isn’t wallet friendly. Once I run out of my current stash, I’m planning to experiment with bicarbonate of soda, white vinegar, castile soap and essential oils, but try not to become a massive hippy in the process 😉
Oh, I live in London too so totally get the limescale problem – Ecover limescale remover works a charm, so I probably won’t be giving that one up.
Such a good suggestion to try bicarb of soda, white vinegar etc and see if they can replace your usual purchases. I used to have a Kim and Aggie book (a friend bought it for me as a joke!) that I remember being full of natural cleaning tips, but I can’t find it anywhere!
White vinegar is a bit of a miracle product for cleaning. I live in an area with a lot of limescale and regularly put vinegar in the washing machine and dishwasher to reduce the limescale and hopefully prolong the life of my white goods!
So do you do an ’empty’ wash with vinegar Anna? I would definitely like to prolong the life of my washing machine…
ooh I need to know this too. I swear North London and it’s hard water is a nightmare!!!
Maintenance wash. Half a cup of vinegar in the drawer, put it on on HOT. Keep running hot washes until it stops foaming up empty.
Also, if you get black sludge in the washing machine powder drawer, instead of trying to scrub it with a toothbrush, just stick it in the dishwasher (if you have one). It comes out shiny and new.
Brilliant, thanks Sara!
I really should switch to eco products and did try it for a while but with two little monkeys causing mayhem and muck in my house I’ve had to get the dettol and and vanish back out! That said I’m a big fan of kitchen products for cleaning as always have them in the cupboard. Bicarbonate of soda is amazing for cleaning and gets everything sparkly plus its always in my baking cupbaord. That and white wine vinegar are my favourite. If you;ve got burnt pans sprinkle bicarb over the base the pour the vinegar over. Let it bubble and fizz for a few hours and it all comes cleans with no scrubbing. Basically you can tip a sprinkle of bicarb anywhere to get rid of marks – sinks, toilets etc and all for a few pence. Plus white wine vinegar on newspaper (yes that inky paper stuff!) will get your glass and mirrors sparkly in no time. So you don’t really need the expensive cleaners and can still be eco in your way. Plus easy to pop these two in your shopping trolley. x
love the saucepan tip – I basically need to do this every time the husband ‘cooks’ !!!
Great tips Charlotte, thank you! x
My granny swore by vinegar and newspaper to clean windows. Used to do it with her when I was little and still do it now – beats all the cleaning products I have tried
I like the idea of natural cleaning products, I really do. But I’m genuinely not prepared to spend extra time scrubbing if I don’t have to.
Having said that, I do use them where they do a better job than the chemical ones. The newspaper and vinegar trick is very good, ditto wrapping your taps in kitchen roll soaked in white vinegar.
To get rid of really stubborn limescale in the loo (hard water problem) which stains and gets unbelievably manky, pop a denture tablet in overnight. It’s like magic!
Love the denture tablet tip Sara, will be trying that for sure – thank you!
Check out A Thrifty Mrs blog for lots of cleaning tips – you can do a hell of a lot with white vinegar! http://www.athriftymrs.com/2011/08/cleaning-with-vinegar.html
Excellent share, thank you Fran (I was a bit worried about the smell!).
Maybe it’s a mater of balance…I too am torn between the toxic fix all chemicals and the more natural solutions when it comes to cleaning, and I also love the feel of knowing something is really clean!
After reading all of this it made me think that (as an ideal if we can stretch to the costs)
the every day cleaning would be great done with the more natural eco options, and once a month or every 6 weeks we could blast the problem areas with the more harsh stuff, thereby reducing the use and intake of the toxic shizzle, but still getting the best results possible.
Maybe this is just my excuse to buy everything on the market!?
That sounds like the ideal compromise Liz. And yes, a good excuse to buy everything out there!
Another London limescale sufferer! I get through SO much vinegar and bicarb I can’t buy it fast enough 😉 I do a variation on Sara’s washing machine clean that involves putting about 1/2 cup bicarb in the drum, vinegar in the drawer, and then a hot wash, then a rinse wash.
Vinegar mixed with a bit of washing up liquid (I still use this – thought the environmental impact was fairly low) and put in one of those dish scrubbing brush things is good to give the bath/shower a once over between cleans.
I heard the denture tip works well to get tea-stained mugs nice and fresh too (although what is in denture cleaner? I have no idea!)
I wish I had something for my hair which HATES hard water – vinegar would probably work, but I don’t want to smell of vinegar! I’m sure limescale builds up on hair too, mine is so much nicer when I wash it somewhere else.