Not long ago I had the opportunity to take Gert Jackson's Herbal Housekeeping class here at the Herb Corner. Until that night I thought that making my own household cleaners would be time consuming, expensive and ineffective. I was wrong. Not only were they easy to make, but in most cases I already had the ingredients at home. As far as being ineffective, I was way off! All of the products that we made in class with Gert work great! I now keep the scouring powder next to the sink in a nice container in my kitchen at home and at the store. I use it on the counter tops to remove stains that I couldn't remove with other products. I use it on my stovetop in place of those other fancy, high-priced soft scrub products made especially for corning top stoves.

After taking Gert's class I began to wonder why many of the cleaning products I had that said they were environmentally safe had warning labels on them. I did some research and found that a label that states "Caution" means that if an average sized adult were to ingest one ounce to one pint of the containments, it could be fatal. A "Warning" sign meant anywhere from one teaspoon to one ounce ingested could be fatal. "Danger, harmful or fatal if swallowed" means anywhere from a taste to one teaspoon could be fatal to an average sized adult. After discovering this, I wanted a better understanding of the word "toxic". I found that a toxic substance is any chemical or mixture of chemicals that can be harmful to the health of you, your child or your pet if inhaled, swallowed, absorbed through the skin or through contact with the skin or the eyes. Besides being dangerous to our health, these chemicals are also harmful to the environment. Eventually they will leach into the land, water and air. These chemicals can cause rashes, burning eyes, headaches, a runny nose, chemical sensitivity, cardiac problems, nervous system problems, respitory conditions, reproductive disorders, kidney damage, liver damage and more.

If these chemicals are in our air fresheners, furniture polishes, carpet cleaners and toilet bowl cleaners and are this harmful to adult humans, can you imagine what they might be doing to our pets? An animal's body (as well as an infant or toddler) is much closer to the floor than an adult, putting them in closer contact with many of the chemicals and making them more susceptible to the illnesses that can be caused by these toxins. Our pets also have a faster metabolism and smaller lungs than adults do therefore their bodies have to work much harder to eliminate these toxins.

Thanks to the creativity of advertisers, we now feel the need to have a cleaning product for all of the different surfaces in our homes. We have become accustomed to the usefulness of these products, but some of them can contain chemicals that can irritate our eyes, skin or throat. Over long-term usage and buildup in our homes, they can be far more dangerous leading to acute or chronic health conditions.

There are safe alternatives that can be substituted for the toxic ones. Making your own cleansers if very simple and relatively inexpensive. I found it to be much cheaper than having many different products in my home. They can be made from a few simple ingredients some of which you may have on hand already. Some examples are baking soda, borax, vinegar, mineral oil, herbs, spices and essential oils. The baking soda can be used for a scrub on shinny surfaces and will not scratch them. It works on carpets to remove odors and spots. It cleans and deodorizes sink drains and softens water. Borax disinfects, deodorizes, helps stop the growth of molds and mildews and is effective in killing microorganisms and fungus on surfaces. Vinegar helps to cut grease, prevents mold growth, freshens the air and dissolves mineral deposits. Grapefruit seed extract is antibacterial, anti-microbial and anti-fungal. Just a few drops in a quart of water are great for cleaning countertops and other kitchen and bathroom surfaces. It can also be used to clean your fresh produce. Some herbs like powered myrrh, peppermint, lavender or thyme can be added to your cleaners to help stop the growth of bacteria. Essential oils, orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit and tea tree have anti-fungal, anti-microbial and antibacterial properties.

I found that cleaning with the natural products I made from Gert's class was much easier than I thought it would be. I feel so strongly about this that I asked Gert to come back and teach this class again so that more of you could find out just how easy this is. Thank you Gert for giving me the tools to make my home a safer place for my family and my pets.