Cleaning is my least favorite chore
I would be lying if I told you I liked cleaning. I would rather fold laundry, trim the bushes, or even pull weeds out of our driveway for two hours. Cleaning is a necessity, though, so I will aim to give you an overview of why it’s important as well as the products we have implemented to be more environmentally friendly and healthier for our home. While I hope to share some practical tips for you, I would love for you to share your best cleaning tips and products in the comments below as well!
Growing up and in my early years of living on my own, I used the most typical cleaning supplies. Pledge®, Windex®, and Lysol® were all standards in my cleaning routine. They always smelled strong, but I had never thought about cleaning product ingredients before. Eventually as I became more concerned about my impact on the environment I switched to Blueland cleaning products. These products prevent plastic waste through reusable bottles and concentrated refills that come in compostable packaging. A few years later I started to learn about the health impacts of many standard cleaning products. I was glad I made the switch to Blueland, and other natural cleaners like vinegar and baking soda. Throughout all of the different products, I have always been a low maintenance cleaner. I only clean when I “have to” and try to use as few products as possible!
Why cleaning matters
As much as I dislike cleaning, it is important for our health. Mold, dust, bacteria, and debris can build up in our homes over time. All of these can have a negative impact on our health with consistent exposure to them. It’s also important to take care of items you own so they last longer. Of course you’re using resources to clean and take care of your items, but if you have to replace items more frequently because of not cleaning or taking care of them, it would require significantly more resources.
The cleaning products you choose to use can also have an impact on your health. Of course disinfectants can be important in cleaning products to remove bacteria and viruses from our homes. However, many typical cleaning products contain strong and harmful chemicals. Many cleaning products are sprays, which become easy for us to inhale when we use them. Some cleaning product ingredients are classified as irritants and give off volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Cleaning products have been associated with asthma, declining lung function, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). While I can’t go through every single ingredient in every single product, I like to use Irina Webb of I Read Labels For You to help me make decisions about the ingredients in the products I use.
Floor cleaning
We primarily have hardwood and tile floors in our home, but a few small sections of carpet. I spent most of my life with carpeted floors until we purchased our home a little over three years ago. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about primarily hardwood floors, but I personally find they are easier to clean.
For our hardwood floors, we use the Norwex brand SuperiorMop System. It’s essentially a “Swiffer” floor duster and mop combination that is reusable. We have both a dry and wet attachment so we can use it to pick up lint from our hardwood floors as well as mop them when needed. The “wet” attachment requires washing after almost every use. We typically vacuum the “dry” attachment and re-use it multiple times before washing. You can also use the rubber brush it comes with to collect the dust and debris from the attachment instead of a vacuum. We have found these to work very well! The best thing about the Norwex attachments is that you don’t need a cleaning agent – you just use water! Additionally, we use our vacuum for smaller areas that are hard to reach like the edges and corners of the rooms.
For our tile floors (our kitchen, entryways, and bathrooms) we primarily use a vacuum to pick up debris, as well as clean the corners and hard to reach areas. Then we use the Norwex wet attachment to mop the areas when needed. Lastly, for our limited carpeted areas (rugs and living room carpet), we use a standard vacuum.
Surface cleaning
For dusting, we primarily use two different products. For dusting the corners of rooms, larger surfaces, our ceiling fans, etc. we again have a reusable duster from Norwex. It has an extendable handle and is called the “EnviroWand”. No cleaning products are needed to use the duster as it’s made of microfiber cloth. We have found that the reusable microfiber needs to be washed frequently to remove the dust. You can lightly spray the duster with water to help the microfiber attract the dust, and prevent it from transferring to other areas. We like that it’s reusable and easy to wash! For other smaller surfaces, we use microfiber cloths that easily attract and pick up dust and other debris. These can be washed and reused many times and they still work well.
When we need a deeper clean on various surfaces in our house, we will use the Blueland general purpose cleaner with a microfiber cloth or a generic rag. As I mentioned earlier, you can purchase the Blueland reusable bottles once. Then just purchase their cleaning tablets which are concentrated and dissolve in water once added to your reusable bottle. Their tablets come in compostable wrappers (if you have access to an industrial compost pile, which we do). When I started using Blueland products they could only be ordered online. Now you can find them in many stores such as Whole Foods and Meijer.
I want to speak about Blueland a little more in depth. They may not be the BEST option from a health standpoint. They do use fragrance in their formulations. While they do not disclose the ingredients they use in their fragrance, they disclose the ingredients that are NOT in it. Given that Blueland makes it easy to be more environmentally friendly, I am personally comfortable with using their products. If you’d like to try your hand at a DIY all purpose cleaner, I like the citrus and vinegar based natural cleaner I’ve made before. Grab an old glass jar, add some citrus peels (lemons, oranges), then add vinegar to cover the citrus peels. Soak them for a few weeks, strain out the citrus, dilute with water, and you have a cleaner! This is also a great way to get the most out of your food scraps before tossing them in the compost pile.
Kitchen cleaning
I don’t know about you, but the kitchen is always the dirtiest room in our house! We spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking healthy meals. This means we also spend a lot of time in the kitchen cleaning up.
For daily counter and stove clean-up, we use reusable Norwex “counter cloths.” These cloths contain a material called “BacLock” which is silver that is woven into the cloth. Silver has natural anti-microbial properties, so it inhibits growth of bacteria when wet. We just wet the counter cloth with water and it definitely works well for wiping up spills and wiping down the counters in the evenings. We also use “un-paper towels” which are essentially printed cotton squares with various patterns to clean up spills. These are not the best for spills as they are not that absorbent. Rags, counter cloths, and un-paper towels all get washed and reused. We have a lot (and all were gifts!) so this type of laundry doesn’t need to be done often.
For cleaning dishes, we use a Pampered Chef scraper (affiliate link) for stuck-on food and a sponge. We have had “reusable” sponges before that can be washed and reused. Quite honestly they don’t last for long when you are cooking and doing dishes every day. They rip apart the same as a disposable sponge and eventually you have to get rid of them. Since disposable sponges are cheaper, we’ve opted for disposables and using them for as long as possible. A scrub brush with a wooden handle may be a better option. The handle can go in the compost bin and a scrub brush typically lasts longer than a sponge. This is something we will be looking to invest in!
For dish soap, we used to have a refill shop near us where we could refill our containers. Now we buy dish soap from Whole Foods. We have chosen the Attitude brand recently. We are on the lookout for a new refill store near us, or a soap block that we can use in place of liquid. In the past, we have tried Blueland dish soap powder, but we feel we go through it very quickly for the price. We also found it’s not as effective as other liquid soaps we have tried. For our dishwasher, we purchase Seventh Generation liquid soap from Whole Foods. It is a better option, but we would prefer to refill containers at a local refill shop. To find a refill shop in your area, check out this reference guide!
Bathroom cleaning
We use Blueland for most of our bathroom cleaning. We use their pink bathroom cleaner for the sinks, showers, and outside of the toilets. Blueland has toilet bowl tablets, which also come in compostable bags. We use these to clean all of our toilets. We’ve found them to work very well. Blueland also has a glass cleaner, but I’ve found that I like the Norwex “Envirocloth” better. The cloths do a great job without the need for any cleaning products, you just need to add water!
The thing I hate cleaning most in our house is our shower. While it is a nice shower, it has tiny tiles which means it also has a lot of grout where dirt, mold, and soap scum can build up. This rechargeable scrub brush (affiliate link) has been an absolute lifesaver when it comes to cleaning our shower! It has a rotating brush head that cleans between tiles, and the scrub brush handle is long enough that I can stand normally. I don’t have to spend hours with a small brush cleaning manually anymore!
Practical tips for a low maintenance, healthy, and sustainable cleaning routine
Now that you know about the products we use regularly for cleaning, I’ll share some practical tips if you want to upgrade your cleaning routine and products.
- If you’ve learned a lot of new information in this blog post, don’t feel like you have to immediately go out and replace all your cleaning products! Start with the products you use most frequently. When you run out of a product, then purchase a better one the next time you need a replacement. Choose what works best for you and your family. Maybe you feel differently about Blueland’s ingredients, or maybe you don’t want to prioritize decreasing waste as much as I do. That’s okay! We all have different priorities. It’s most important that you understand what you’re choosing and why, rather than blindly buying popular or recommended brands.
- To make your cleaning routine more sustainable, I would highly recommend reusable products regardless of where you get them from. You don’t need fancy un-paper towels or Norwex cloths to wipe up spills. We actually received all of our Norwex cloths and un-paper towels as gifts. You can easily use old T-shirts, towels, or washcloths as your kitchen rags and cleaning cloths. Prioritizing reusable options is not only environmentally friendly, it will also save you money in the long run.
- Pay attention to your cleaning product ingredients. While there are too many cleaning ingredients for me to get into the details, I would highly recommend referencing Irina Webb of I Read Labels for You who regularly performs deep dives into ingredient research. She has many great blogs about various ingredients that are used in cleaning products. It will help you understand the ingredients and what you may want to avoid for health and environmental reasons. If you’re looking for a broad list of ingredients to avoid, I’d recommend avoiding phthalates, parabens, PEGs, and fragrance. Although Blueland uses fragrance, I am comfortable with the ingredients they avoid using in their formulations given the waste reduction it permits.
- Be extremely careful of following recipes online about creating your own cleaning products. Cleaning agents are chemicals that can react together and form dangerous materials. You may see recipes that combine baking soda (basic material) with vinegar (acidic material). These two materials will react, which is why when you add them together they create foam. The chemical reaction produces salt, water, and carbon dioxide. So while baking soda and vinegar are good cleaning agents on their own, combining them doesn’t really provide much benefit as they neutralize each other and become less effective. Now this chemical reaction is not dangerous, it can just lead to an ineffective cleaner. However, if you mix a bleach-based cleaning product with an ammonia-based cleaning product, it can produce chlorine gas. Chlorine gas is extremely dangerous and can be fatal if you inhale it. Please ensure you are getting your cleaning recipes from reputable sources, and that you understand the ingredients you are mixing together to ensure you don’t create additional hazards for yourself and your family.
- Lastly, if you struggle with finding the motivation to clean like I do, I’ve found that a cleaning schedule can be helpful. I must admit at this moment, I have neglected my cleaning schedule. I am back to feeling overwhelmed at all the cleaning I have to do! But I’ll share the schedule that has been helpful to us previously in maintaining a clean household. One thing I started this year that I need to get back into is never going to bed with a messy kitchen. An extra 10-15 minutes to finish up the dishes and wipe off the counters in the evening makes for a smoother morning cooking breakfast since everything is clean, put away, and I know where everything is. Our cleaning schedule also includes two areas to clean each week. We add the areas to our to do list at the start of the week to ensure it gets done. The breakdown of our “areas” are: dust and sweep the downstairs, clean the bathrooms, dust and sweep the upstairs, and deep clean the kitchen. Keeping up on cleaning regularly is much less overwhelming than waiting for all rooms to need cleaned and rushing to clean everything before we have guests! When we have a busy week, cleaning is usually the first thing that drops off of our to do lists. It’s time to get back into our schedule because we know it makes our lives easier later on!
As I mentioned earlier, we are low maintenance cleaners. I would love to hear in the comments if you learned any new cleaning habits or products you are planning to implement in your cleaning routine. Also, if you have any other cleaning product brands or tips to share, I’m always looking for ways to make our cleaning routines even easier!
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