Hydrogen Peroxide and Green Living (Blulow)

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As promised in my Basic Ingredients for Blulow Living blog entry, here are a few reasons why it's good to keep a few bottles of hydrogen peroxide in your home.

1. Cleaning stainless steel sinks: It's great for leaving a stainless steel sink glistening. It may work as well on porcelain sinks too, but mine is stainless steel so I can only tell you about my experience.When you are disinfecting your kitchen sponge at the end of the day, pour some hydrogen peroxide on the back of your scrubbing sponge. You know the kind with the coarse plastic on the back (not steel wool pads like SOS or Brillo). While scrubbing the sink, you'll notice the peroxide will foam a little, but that's good. It's the disinfecting action. Once you're through scrubbing, rinse it all off. Your sink will shine.
2. A laundry whitener. Use it instead of bleach to whiten your white clothes. Not being a chemist, I cannot explain the chemical reaction that occurs causing the peroxide to whiten the clothes, but it works.Hydrogen peroxide as a whitener seemed the like the next logical step. After all, I've gone as far as making homemade laundry detergent, why not go all the way and use an environmentally friendly bleaching agent.
3. Removes pesticides from fruits and vegetables. Put your veggies in a bowl of gold water and pour about a quarter cup in the bowl of hydrogen peroxide. Let it sit for about 10 or 15 minutes and then wash it off. I've also been told that it will be more effective if you follow the hydrogen peroxide washing with a similar procedure using apple cider vinegar. Using both products, one after the other, will purportedly remove 99% of the pesticides.I don't have chemical proof that it works, but I do it anyway. It can't hurt anymore than ingesting the pesticides. I do the same thing with meat too. I put the meat in cold water and add a little hydrogen peroxide then thoroughly wash it off.
4. Teeth whitener: Used in conjunction with baking soda, hydrogen peroxide can whiten your teeth and kill germs. Put a little baking soda in a small cup with a capful of hydrogen peroxide. All you need is just enough to make the baking soda pasty enough to stick to your toothbrush. Dip your toothbrush into the paste and brush.No, it does not taste minty sweet and delicious, but it works.While we're on the subject of teeth, morning breath and germs, when you reach for your mouthwash, use one part mouthwash to one part hydrogen peroxide for extra germ killing power.
5. Cuts and Scrapes: Almost forgot to mention that it's great for cleaning cuts and scrapes.

These are a few ways that I use hydrogen peroxide. For more ways, check out these sites:

• http://www.h2o2-4u.com/house.html
• http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/h/hydrogen-peroxide.htm

Blulow and Animals - We can't forget our furry friends

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I want to talk about something that had not dawned on me until I received an e-mail from a concerned reader. Her email expressed a two-fold concern:

1. Was the Arm & Hammer Washing Soda ingredient I call for the in the homemade laundry and dishwashing detergent recipes phosphate free?
2. Is the Arm & Hammer testing process animal cruelty free? In other words, do they engage in animal testing of their products?

After doing some research, I was pleased to be able to inform this reader that yes, in fact Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda is phosphate free, but saddened to inform that they are not a pet friendly company. They do engage in animal testing of their products. Having been made aware of this, I feel this is a fact that I must share with my readers.

The Caring Consumer website maintains a listing of those companies who are pet friendly, and those who are not. This list is updated every three to four months or so.

Now that you are aware of this fact what can you do? Well, the way I see it, you do have options when it comes to making your own homemade laundry and dish detergent. You can either abandon the process of making your own detergent and continue with the store-bought brand (but please check the above websites to see if they are pet friendly and make sure they are phosphate free), or you can try fix what is broken.

To the second option, I am listing the contact information for the owners of Arm & Hammer below. Please call, write or e-mail them and express your concerns. If we all band together we might be able to make a change. After all, that's why we're all going blulow. We want to make a change and preserve our environment of which animals are a part.

Church & Dwight
P.O. Box 1625
Horsham, PA 19044-6625
Phone: 609-683-5900 or 800-524-1328
Web Address: http://www.armandhammer.com/
Consumer comment/complaint: www.churchdwight.com/consumer_info/consumer/consumer.asp

Blulow and Debt - Not a good partnership

While surfing the net this morning, I came across an interesting site called New American Dream. I would advise all of you who are interested in living blulow to pay it a visit.

New American Dream offers tips, advice and information about how to live consciously and blulow, by doing things like simplifying the holidays (check out their Holiday Survival Kit) and living green below your means. Green living is beneficial to the environment, your peace of mind and your pocketbook. According to their site, "in November of 2003 54% of consumers were still paying off credit card debt left over from the previous holiday season." Does that really make sense?

I wonder if those folks still paying for their prior year's holiday debt remember what they bought. Stop and think for a minute. What did you get last year for the holidays? What did you buy? When was the last time you used it? Now the big question, are you still paying the credit card debt associated with it? Here are a few blulow tips for paying the debt down creatively and quickly.

I'm not saying to stop spending around the holidays, but what I am saying is be conscious of what you are buying. When you pull out your credit card in December, try to think about July of the following year. Will you still be paying for your December purchase and will the recipient remember what you gave them?

Here's a thought. Rather than paying for the holiday purchases a year later, why not start preparing your holiday gifts a year earlier. Think of gifts you can make that are meaningful and much less expensive. If you start early enough in the year, you will be ready when the holiday rolls around. Plus, you'll be able to enjoy your New Year because you wont be starting another year underneath a mountain of newly incurred credit card debt.

Basic Cleaning Ingredients for Living Blulow

If you are serious about going living blulow, there are certain ingredients that are must haves in your house.

1. Baking Soda (It doesn't have to be Arm & Hammer. Generic baking soda will do)
   
2. Borax
   
3. Distilled White Vinegar
   
4. Distilled Water
   
5. Hydrogen Peroxide (H202)
   
6. Super Washing Soda
   
7. Ivory Soap is nice to have around also.
   

You'll find that there are many uses for the above ingredients and it's best to have them around. Knowing that you may use them more often as you begin to replace your usual cleaners, pick them up when ever you see them on sale.

If you've read my articles on making homemade dish and laundry detergent, you already see how useful it is to have borax and washing soda on hand. Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing how to incorporate these ingredients in your daily cleaning routine.

Stay tuned...

Disclaimer: The advice I give here is from my own experience coupled with extensive research. Feel free to contact me if you have questions, but by all means, don't take my word for anything. Try it on your own and do your own research.

Disinfecting Your Kitchen Sponge

What a nasty little germ-breeding tool the kitchen sponge can become. Using it to clean up the mess after handling raw meat tends to spread the bacteria from the meat over every surface. Using plain kitchen dish soap cleans the sponge superficially, but the bacteria will live on.

To kill the bacteria try placing the sponge in a shallow bowl. Pour hydrogen peroxide (3% grade) over the sponge, just enough to saturate it. Let it sit for about 5 or 10 minutes or so (watch it foam). Wash it out and repeat a couple of times. You'll notice that the foaming will diminish. Once it stops foaming profusely, the germs and bacteria have been defeated.

Try disinfecting nightly, or right after using the sponge to clean the remnants of raw meat. Using hydrogen peroxide is a much cheaper option than disinfectant wipes. A large 32 oz. bottle of hydrogen peroxide costs about 90 cents in Wal-Mart. A canister of 35 disinfectant wipes may cost anywhere from $2.50 and up.

There are many other blulow uses for hydrogen peroxide. Stay tuned, I will post them in the near future.

Homemade Window Cleaner

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When you have sprayed your last squirt of store-bought window spray, take the 32 ounce bottle and wash it out. Once it’s washed, add 2 tablespoons of distilled vinegar and fill the rest with water. Replace the spray top and look for a dirty window or mirror. You’ve just made homemade widow spray.

Use it just as you previously used the ammonia based store-bought mixture. As you use your homemade window spray, you will notice a hint of vinegar smell. Don’t worry the smell quickly dissipates

Blulow tip: If your child accidentally swallows a gulp or two of your homemade window cleaner, be sure to quickly give your child lettuce, tomato, cucumber and a little extra virgin olive oil. It can count towards the USDA’s recommended 5 servings of fruits and vegetables for the day.

Homemade Liquid Hand Soap

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Have we allowed the advertisers and marketers to dictate our tastes and preferences or are we in control and we determine what we need and want?

Just turn on your TV and you are told that you are not happy unless you are wearing the latest style in clothes, driving the most up to date car while taking the prescription drug du jour (with those nasty little side effects). Fido will live longer if you feed him the appropriate dog food and your kids can never be happy unless they have the latest thumb strengthening electronic gadget.

Now, pretend that you live in a remote location without the benefit of television and constant radio advertisements. You and you alone determine what makes you happy and what you need in order to survive. The ‘keeping up with the Joneses advertising’ does not exist.

I took you through that mental exercise because I wanted to talk to you about making homemade liquid hand soap. Yeah, I know, I just ragged on the advertising industry, now I’m going to talk about making something that they have ‘created a need’ for in our homes. Let’s face it, I don’t know about you but when I was a child, we used bar soap to wash our hands before dinner and it worked just fine.

Anyhow, now that liquid hand soap has become a ‘necessity’ let’s make our own instead of buying it from the store. The recipe is not complicated and the soap achieves the affect that soap was created for. It thoroughly cleans your hands.

There is no magic formula. Don’t be led astray by all of the complicated formulas and ingredients. What we’re going to make here is basic homemade liquid hand soap. The most economical way to make it is to save all of the small soap fragments that you’ve collected over time. However, if you don’t have saved soap fragments, a bar of soap will work just as well.

Here’s what you do:

In a pot, bring about 3 cups of water to a boil. While the water is coming to a boil, shave the bar of soap into fragments, or break up the already small pieces of left over soap. The smaller the fragments, the quicker they will dissolve in the boiling water.

Stir the soap into the boiling water until the soap completely dissolves. Once the mixture is cool, pour it into your old soap dispenser. You will note the mixture is not as thick as store-bought soap (if consistency is an issue for you, use less water and more soap). However, you’ll find the watery hand soap mixture works exceedingly well in creating a lather and cleaning your hands.

Here’s where the advertising and marketing exercise from above comes into play. The advertisers will have us believe that the thick gel type liquid hand soap is necessary to get our hands clean. Oh contraire!

If you prefer to have a different scent, experiment with essential oils. Only a drop or two is necessary.

This is a basic no fluff recipe for homemade liquid hand soap. It will clean your hands thoroughly. After all, that’s what you want the soap to do, isn’t it?

By the way, how much did this cost you?

Score another one for thinking blulow!