Hey All,
Well, I have wanted to go green for some time now. My husband is on board and we are moving into a house with housemates who are on board. The trick is to go green without breaking the bank. So far so good...
We're rocking the laundry so far. We usually use Ecos laundry soap (available at Walmart), though we'll probably try them all. We do not use fabric softner. Instead we use distilled white vinegar in a Downy ball (you can pour it directly into your softener slot if your washer has one of those). From what I have read soap does not rinse all the way out of your clothes leaving them rough and scratchy. Thus, the need for softener. Vinegar rinses all that soap residue out and you are left with soft fabric and no need for chemical softener. The only thing missing is that great softener smell in your clothes. I have made some homemade potpourri packets to put in my drawers and closets. I'll let you know if that helps. For our white load we use baking soda and vinegar. Whites aren't super white yet, but we'll figure it out. Any good whitening suggestions would be welcome :)
Cleaning products have not posed much of an issue yet either. We use vinegar everywhere. Baking soda is our new scrubber (add salt of you need more grit). The biggest win has been in the shower. Give your shower one really good scrubbing. Then get a water bottle ($1) and fill it with a vinegar/water mixture. Spray the whole shower after every use!! That crazy white film on the shower doors takes so much longer to build up now. You can literally see that your shower is not getting as dirty as fast!
Now my husband is a bit of a germaphobe. He was not willing to give up disinfecting wipes. To be honest neither was I. So, we bought a bottle of each of the green options on the shelf and have found our favorite. It basically came down to smell. That is a major deciding factor in my house for a lot of things. There was one brand that we threw out after one wipe. It was entirely smell, and had no basis in quality of product so I will not name names. What I will tell you is our favorite. That is Green Works by Clorox. They are 99% naturally derived and best of all compostable.
We have actually been very happy with all the Green Works products we have tried!! They are very decent products, better for the environment than what we were buying and they are on the cheaper end of the green spectrum - which is really great when you are starting out and on a tight budget. I have not done enough research yet to know which products are the "best" but what it boils down to is each family finding the best products for them. Green Works has definitely become a staple in our house.
Well, everyone complains that being green is so expensive. Ecos was not the cheapest thing on the shelf, but WAS cheaper than several major brands of regular laundry soap. Vinegar and baking soda and salt are some of the cheapest things you can buy. Green Works products are very reasonably priced. End of the day. Green cleaning doesn't break the bank!
