Your EcoFriendly Cleaning Supplies

Tonight you probably received a delivery: two squirt bottles filled with a minty fluid and two jugs or bottles of a substance suspiciously resembling lemonade. But these were not your generic bottles of lemony-fresh liquid. No, instead they were the result of Aaron, Natalie, Elena and my work this evening in the EcoHouse Cleaning Supplies Workshop!

You may be questioning what to do with all of this, so I bring you a little explanation. What we've provided for you is Lemon-Mint Window Wash and Bleach / Brightener Substitute. The window wash should essentially be a substitute for Windex. It's made from lemon juice, water, cornstarch, and peppermint essential oil -- all eco-friendly and ready to keep your windows shiny. Use it like you would use any window cleaner, except instead of your standard cleaning rag, the recipe we used suggests you clean your windows using newspaper to avoid streakiness. We tested it out in the Leonardtown Community Center windows, and it was successful! (Our secret mission to make the entire community center smell like peppermint was also a success.) We suggest the usage of your least favorite part of the Diamondback for all your window-cleaning needs.

The bleach / brightener substitute is for your laundry needs. It's a pretty simple solution: hydrogen peroxide and grapefruit juice mixed with a lot of water. Who knew that grapefruit juice could clean your clothes? The recipe says to use 2 c. per load of laundry, presumably to brighten the colors. This has yet to be thoroughly tested, though plans to use the concoction are in the works.

Since we didn't get the chance to before we distributed them to the apartments: please label your cleaning solutions! Though most of the ingredients are relatively harmless, we'd rather you didn't mistake bleach substitute for lemonade. Lemonade doesn't contain hydrogen peroxide, this does. Be kind to your future self and give yourself a label to read.

If you haven't seen these mysterious solutions show up in your cleaning supplies yet, ask your roommates about them! Every EcoHouse apartment got some, and they're quite useful as near as we can tell.

Interested in making your own eco-friendly cleaning supplies? The recipes we used are:

Lemon-Mint Window Wash Juice from one fresh lemon 2 cups water or club soda ½ teaspoon peppermint essential oil 1 teaspoon cornstarch Mix all ingredients and pour into plastic spray bottle. Shake well before using.

Bleach/Brightener Substitute 1 cup hydrogen peroxide 1 ¼ cup lemon or grapefruit juice 12 cups water Store in a labeled one-gallon plastic jug. Add 2 cups per load.

There's more! If you're interested in any other eco-cleaning supplies, email me at olivia dot buzek at gmail dot com.