1. Pretend you are Lucille Ball (or Desi Arnez) while scrubbing the s#*t out of your toilet- while remembering that she only had elbow grease and a mild cleanser to do the job

        2. Play your favorite music and sing as loudly as you can- thus getting carried away in the moment

3. Rehearse the lines from you next performance, play or musical. Oh wait, if you are actually on Broadway then there is no way you will be cleaning your own bathroom so disregard this post.

        4. Speak lovingly to your bright yellow gloves while reflecting that if you are ever to run low on baby bottles that they can be used in a pinch to feed the baby.

       5. Transport yourself mentally to a Hawaiian Island and bask in the sun, listening to the Tahitian music you know is being played there

       6. Figure out the best way to ask for a raise; then figure out a better way. All the while using Bon Ami to get the bathtub ring and soap scum off the sides of the tub. (Not forgetting to get the soap dish clean, because let’s face it, that thing may have years of soap clinging to the creases in it.)

      7. Resolve to yourself for the duration that you will hire a company to do this job in the future

      8. Do pantomime while cleaning the kitchen cabinets; being a mime has proven to reduce the risk of cancer in lab rats.

      9. Realize that there is no other greater sense of satisfaction than knowing that you can eat off your own floor.

      1o. Smile. And the whole world smiles with you…

For blood stains that are fresh, hydrogen peroxide (3% as found in most stores) can be applied directly to the wet stain and then rinsed with cold water. Do not rub the fabric-blot it with dry towel or rag- and just rinse it with cold (always and only cold) water. You may be surprised how well this works!

Hydrogen Peroxide (also known as H2O2) is also a fabulous disinfectant. You can add a bit of neutral, liquid soap to a bottle of peroxide and this will take care of bacteria and dirt in bathrooms, on counters, desks, computer keyboards, etc. You may want to use gloves, because a 3% solution of H2O2 can bleach your skin and be uncomfortably ‘tingly.’

H2O2 easily breaks down into it’s component parts (oxygen and water) when mixed with water and leaves virtually NO harmful elements behind.

The second alternative to bleach and ammonia is lemon juice or vinegar. Lemon juice has a natural bleaching agent and it smells nice. You can squeeze lemon juice directly onto stains and blot stain off. ANY stain is easier to clean when it is fresh, so don't be discouraged if an old stain doesn't come out with lemons. Lemons also have disinfecting properties; so you can wipe a bathroom with a rag of lemon juice once it is clean with soap and obtain fresh smelling, disinfected surfaces!

Vinegar is also a disinfectant and is great for cleaning stainless steel and glass- a must in the shower and on glass bathroom doors. You can use it straight out of the bottle, no diluting needed.

There are a couple alternatives to some of the less healthy stain removers and disinfecting agents we find most commonly used.

I think I should start with what I DO know absolutely. I KNOW THAT I WANT TO USE PRODUCTS AND CLEANING SERVICES THAT ARE BETTER FOR ME, MY FRIENDS AND THE ENVIRONMENT. I know that there is a lot of conflicting and confusing information out there. And I know that a lot of products out there claim that they are “green.”

I am an optimist and a realist at the same time- I think we can make better choices but I also hate it when I spill coffee on my white shirt that I can’t get out without using bleach!

I want to get to the bottom of all this, don’t you? Common sense tells us that if it poisons us upon touching it or ingesting it, it probably isn’t good for our water/food supplies or our oceans. Common sense is sorely lacking in general, but that is a different topic altogether. So I will stick to some basic facts for this first blog.

I want to use products that are biodegradable. (def: Capable of being decomposed by biological agents, especially bacteria: “a biodegradable detergent.”) This is a good thing. This means that once we flush it down the toilet or drain, that it can be broken down into basic elements that are not toxic. So I want products that do that! And if that means I may have to scrub harder, so what? If it also means I can sleep better knowing I am not poisoning those cute dolphins then it is worth it.

I have been doing some research on common cleaning agents and I have been surprised by what I have found:

Not everything that I thought was bad, is as bad as I thought… and other products I thought were ‘good’ have turned out to be not so good after all. Go figure.

So here is what I am using to determine “good” and “bad”:

Good: for our purposes here, would be cleansing agents that 1. Are least harmful to human bodies when used and 2. They more easily break down in water and don’t cause significant harm to the environment once dumped back into our waterways.

Bad: for our purposes here, would be cleansing agents that 1. Cause harm to our skin and respiratory systems when used and 2. Don’t break down easily in water and/or have a toxic effect on the waters of our planet or the air it evaporates into.

At first glance it would seem we could rule out a couple really common ingredients that are sold in stores, such as ammonia and bleach. Both are harmful.

But first, let’s define a couple things:

Organochlorines: compounds which are generally toxic and persistent in the environment.

Ammonia: This is a gas- Ammonia gas dissolves easily in water to form ammonium hydroxide, a caustic solution used in cleaners.  It is naturally occurring in small amounts, and not hazardous unless you live next to a huge animal farm where the gasses can cause asthmatic reactions. In concentrated forms such as those in household cleaners it is HIGHLY TOXIC. (To skin and lungs.) It will not break down fully without other chemical action taken to it. In other words, it stays ammonia. NOT good when we are dumping it down the drain in concentrations that we would never find in nature.

Bleach: It is hazardous because it is reactive and a lung and eye irritant. Products containing chlorine bleach usually contain trace amounts of organochlorines that cause cancer in animals and are expected to do so in humans. Small amounts of organochlorines are also formed whenever chlorine bleach is used, although most of the bleach does break down into salt water.

So surprisingly, bleach IS biodegradable except for the fact that it interacts with other elements and makes REALLY bad and toxic compounds that hang around for a long time. Again, I am a realist. So in small doses, such as a tiny bit on a Q-tip to get that mean blood stain out of my white jeans, we are not talking about killing our friendly fish.

But bleach used in every load of laundry, every household cleaner and every disinfectant product and we are now talking about a huge, harmful element.

Ammonia is the poorer choice between the two.

Check out my next blog on alternatives for bleaching and disinfecting.