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This, my friends, was the current state of my cleaning products, a.k.a. the cabinet under the kitchen sink and the cabinet in the laundry room. Oh my. To say this is mortifying is an understatement. I pride myself on having organized drawers and cabinets (most of the time). But this? There is no excuse for this. It, like everything else, just got neglected and fell apart earlier this year.
But….enough was enough. Just opening up these cabinet doors was stressful. And then digging around what seemed like 1,000 bottles (I’m only slightly exaggerating) and 1,000 rags was just too much for me to handle.
So I did what every rational, normal person would do….I went out and bought MORE cleaning products.
Huh???
You heard me right. Here’s how I got from Point A (the messy cabinet stress) to Point B (the buying of MORE cleaning products).
First, I pulled everything out of the cabinet.
Awful. Even Macy is stunned.
I threw out almost-empty bottles and combined other half-empty bottles of like products. Then I assessed what I had left and started thinking.
I realized that I am TIRED of buying expensive cleaning products full of all kinds of chemicals.
I am TIRED of having sneezing attacks because the scents on some of these products are so overwhelming. I’ve discovered that as I get older I’m becoming more sensitive to the strong smells and chemicals. After I clean I usually get a headache and I’m plugged up and sneezing.
I am TIRED of re-buying stuff I already have because the first bottle has gotten lost in the depths of the cabinets and/or is not where it should be.
I am TIRED of having 4 different products JUST to clean the bathroom, 3 different products JUST to clean the kitchen and multiple products for the floors. And don’t even get me started on the big ugly bottles that do our laundry.
So I decided to make my own.
I’m trying to simplify. Trying to get my house back to the point where it’s not busting at the seams. So I decided to give this a shot to see if it helps. I’d much rather have 6 or 7 bottles under the sink as opposed to 40 or 50. And I’d much rather not be inhaling harmful chemicals that give me headaches and make me sneeze.
I did a bunch of research, read reviews, read what worked, what didn’t work, how these homemade products held up against high traffic areas, pets, etc. I did tons of reading on the subject. And there are plenty of recipes and articles online. I then settled on some ‘recipes’ and went to 2 different places to get what I needed: Walmart and Whole Foods. As much as I love Target, I knew they would not have a couple of the ingredients that I needed (Zote and Washing Soda, both can be found at Walmart)
Here’s what I came home with:
Everything in this picture was cheap (and shockingly natural) except the items I got at Whole Foods, i.e. Whole Paycheck. Of course. I got the castile soap and the essential oils there. However, I have since checked Amazon for both the soap and oils and they were about the same price that I paid at Whole Paycheck. I was shocked!
I boxed up my old cleaning products and put them in the garage. Which, after I went through them and got rid of the ones that were ¾ empty, I only had maybe 8 or 9 bottles left. I didn’t want to throw them out just yet. I wanted to give my homemade cleaners a try for a couple of months. So they will live in the garage for a while.
Then I got to work on making my own stuff. That will be in the next blog post, along with the ‘after’ photos of my project.
