• Using everyday household items can help maintain a clean home.
• Vinegar is an affordable and efficient cleaning product that can kill bacteria and germs and leave behind a clean shine.
• Baking soda can be used to scrub dirty surfaces and neutralize odors.
• Essential oils are effective replacements to harmful chemical cleaners while making housework more pleasant.
• Professional help may be necessary for certain tasks like carpet cleaning, upholstering, or deep spring cleaning.

• Oils have been used for centuries to promote mental and physical wellbeing.
• Essential oils, also called natural oils, are made from plant and herb extracts that have been pressed or distilled to keep their natural health benefits and scents.
• Natural oils are more expensive due to their intricate refinement process and higher purity levels. Synthetic oils are man-made scents with no health benefits and may contain compounds that can be harmful to the skin.
• Natural oils offer a range of beneficial health effects including anti-bacterial, antiviral, and antiseptic properties.
• MamaSuds carries only pure essential oils in their products, such as lavender and lemon plus a proprietary blend called Germs Away.

Sometimes it can be hard to find the time that you need to give your home a good, thorough cleaning.

It can be a slow, sometimes tedious process and we often like to resort to the easiest methods possible to get it done as quickly as possible.

It’s hard to fault anyone for doing this, but the problem with the easiest route is that it does tend to be the least healthy one.

It’s a lot more convenient to tackle your house using all of the common store-bought cleaning products. And that stuff is packed with chemicals and ambiguous ingredients.

And the same applies to washing your clothes, cleaning dishes and spraying scented substances to enhance the aroma of your house.

You never know what kind of potentially harmful material you are releasing into the air when you clean like that. It’s detrimental to your health and the environment.

Green cleaning is the way to go. And with the right blends of essential oils, you can put together your own cleaning products that are way more healthy.

Here’s five essential oils that are great for green cleaning:

1.    Lavender

People have been using lavender for a lot of different reasons for many, many years now. It’s one of the most popular essential oils.

It’s good for your skin and hair, and it’s also good for fighting against nausea as well as things like the common cold.

It works against these because it’s antibacterial and antiviral. This makes it a great choice for cleaning your bathroom or your kitchen.

You want to use it in places where bacteria is prone to build up and also where people eat. If you mix it in a spray bottle with water and white vinegar it makes a great cleaning solution.

It’s also useful as an insect repellent as well as an air freshener that you can spray around your house.

2.    Peppermint

Much like lavender, peppermint is a popular way to deal with headaches and nausea, but many people don’t realize that it’s also a powerful disinfectant.

It makes for a great surface cleaner. If you mix this with some vinegar and water in a spray bottle you can use it to clean countertops.

You’ve probably noticed by this stage that vinegar, white vinegar specifically is something that you will need to have for a lot of these blends.

I know that the smell of vinegar isn’t necessarily popular but it’s useful in cleaning solutions and the oils will usually mask the smell anyway.

You can also use this particular mixture to clean the floors too. If you mix it with water in your mop bucket it should do the trick.

3.    Lemon

Lemon is a terrific oil for cleaning around the house because it’s got antibacterial properties but is also a low pH.

It won’t do any damage to your surfaces but is still effective in killing bacteria and disinfecting things.

Lemon is actually something that you could use to clean all of your appliances, and also ceiling fans and trash cans.

You could clean the microwave with it by just microwaving a cup filled with water and lemon oil and then wiping down the inside of the machine.

And if you want to treat the dishwasher with it, mix distilled vinegar with a few drops of lemon oil and place it in an empty dishwasher.

These are notoriously hard to clean but lemon oil gets the job done with minimal hassle.

4.    Eucalyptus

This is yet another oil that has antifungal, antiviral and antibacterial properties so you can use it in a lot of the ways that you can the others we discussed.

But it’s also very good at getting rid of grease and grime. Areas like the oven top, the kitchen sink and the microwave are places where this could be a problem.

Mix eucalyptus with water and, you guessed it, white vinegar in a spray bottle and then use that on these surfaces to get rid of all that grease.

It’s a good way to remove adhesive too so if there is any sticky residue stuck to countertops or windows then the eucalyptus mix will deal with that.

And on top of all that it’s good for keeping away pests and dust mites.

5.    Tea Tree

We can sing the praises of tea tree oil all day. It doesn’t smell particularly strong, it’s minimally invasive in terms of leaving stains or causing damage and there’s many uses.

You can use it to put together a multi-purpose, disinfectant cleaning spray which you can use on pretty much any surface.

And it makes for a very strong bathroom scrub because it’s a natural mold fighter. So it would also be great for cleaning the kitchen sink too.

Because it’s a disinfectant, you could put it to good use cleaning things like yoga mats or other pieces of exercise equipment too.

Conclusion

Put the days of letting all of those nasty fumes pollute your home and your body behind you. Give green cleaning a try, you won’t regret it.

If you want to find out more about green cleaning and how to implement it into your routine, check out this article from Groom & Style.

• Vetiver Essential Oil: derived from Vetiveria zizanioides, calming and grounding effect, used in cosmetics, room fresheners and flavoring agents
• Spikenard Essential Oil: derived from Nardostachys Jatamansi, purifying benefits to skin
• Galabanum Essential Oil: derived from Ferula galbaniflua, used for air passages and skin issues
• Baobab Oil: derived from the Baobab Tree found in Africa, high amounts of Vitamin C, A & B and fatty acids with antioxidant properties

I really love fall. Sweaters, leaves changing, going to the cider mill, hot cider and doughnuts…. YUM. It’s also when my diffuser gets put on overdrive, it’s literally on 24/7. Here are my top 5 essential oil recipes for Fall:

Autumn Morning
5 drops of orange
5 drops of cinnamon

Cider Mill
2 drops of cinnamon
2 drops of clove bud
2 drops of orange
2 drops of ginger

Cozy Fire
4 drops cedarwood
1 drop vetiver

 

Hiking in the Woods
2 drops of cedar wood
2 drops of fir needle or pine
1 drop frankincense or tea tree 

Sunday Dinner
2 drop of orange
2 drops of lemon
2 drops of cinnamon
1 drops of clove bud
1 drops of fir needle or pine

Switch to a Cold Air Diffuser

I used to burn lots of candles this time of year, then I switched to warming them until I got smart and switched to a diffuser. Burning candles seems innocent enough but they are a huge source of indoor pollution. Candles burn off chemicals that are bad for your health. Most candles are made of pariffin (a petroleum waste product) that has been bleached and deodorized so it can be made into wax. Candles are made with synthetic oils that are most likely made with phthalates. Candle warmers and steam diffusers heat the oil, which depletes the oil of it’s therapeutic benefits so I prefer using a cold-air diffuser. If you must burn a candle, a great alternative is a pure beeswax candle. When burned, they emit negative ions (like Himalayan Salt lamps!) that clean the air.

• Arhaus is a furniture company that creates earth-friendly products, sharing tips on their infographic to inspire people to make small changes in their homes.
• People have been conditioned to think that "clean" should have a scent, however air fresheners are known to contain phthalates which when inhaled can be harmful.
• Air fresheners such as Febreze®, Glade® PlugIns® Scented Oil and Renuzit® Cones should be avoided and replaced with fresh air, MamaSuds homemade organic essential oils, real wax candles from Mountain Rose Herbs, Aroma Naturals or Poofy Organics Candle Melts and diffusers with essential oils from Amazon.