This article reminded me of when I learned about the expensive LemiShine products I used for cleaning. I liked the way LemiShine products worked to clean laundry and dishes in spite of the hard water here where I live. I did not like the prices. When I bothered to read the ingredient lists on each product, I realized the main one was citric acid.
Buying citric acid powder in bulk is much cheaper than purchasing the various LemiShine (and other brands) cleaning products. The powder can be added to water for spraying and cleaning whatever I want. I can use as little or as much of the powder itself as a laundry booster, dishwasher cleaner, or whatever. The two main ways I use the powder? To clean my coffee pots and the mineral deposits around the faucets. I also sprinkle a little into the toilet bowl once a week to soak and flush away that nasty-looking brown line of hard-water stain.
What I never considered until recently are all the other products I could replace with some basic (and bulk) ingredients.
Oxi Clean is my go-to alternative to bleach - especially for cleaning clothing. I now know that the main ingredient in that is Sodium Percarbonate.
So this is just a quickie post to let you know about these base ingredients in case you want to do your own research. I will be on the prowl for more info so that I can keep saving money - and perhaps being a little healthier - when cleaning.
Here are some links I am going to be checking out:
This stuff turns out to be great for dealing with hard-to-remove grease on plasticware. I don't know if I would use it on expensive plastic containers but I used it on my cheap old containers and it removed every bit of the red grease stains from some taco meat I stored. Of course, I made sure to rinse completely clean of any paste residue. So there.
So...
A few weeks ago when I was rearranging things on my kitchen countertops, I discovered something about my Keurig: it can stain the crap out of cheap Corian counters. Ugh.
First, I was stupefied that I had never noticed the staining before. I mean, I am kind of a neat freak and I clean my counters all the time. I even move things on a pretty regular basis to clean under them. I guess though that the last time I moved the Keurig was about 6 months ago when I was draining and cleaning the tank. There had been no serious stains then. When I moved the machine this time though...
I think that what happened was is that some spilled coffee went unnoticed for a while. Like I said, I have been on an instant coffee kick and using my electric kettle more than the Keurig. However, the Keurig stays on constantly and exudes some heat. Maybe the heat combined with a sitting stain just sort of... grossified?
The first thing I did to attack the stain was to use a mixture of baking soda, vinegar, and Dawn. It sort of worked but not really. Next, I left some bleach on the stain for a few minutes. Better but still there.
Should I be ashamed to say that I just covered the remaining stain back up with the Keurig until I could figure out a better solution? Oh well.
I actually kind of forgot it because, well, I haven't been using the Keurig as much and I have the attention span and memory of a drunk gnat.
Because nothing else had worked on the stain and it was really starting to irk me, I went hunting for something. I found this:
That's really called "The Pink Stuff" and it's a Pepto-pink. Or maybe Pla-doh-pink? It has the consistency of toothpaste. In fact, that is exactly what the feel reminds me of - except super gritty.
I don't like that there is not a complete list of ingredients on the product container and was irritated that I had to go to a website listed on the product just to get a full listing. I was REALLY irritated that I had to input a barcode just to get to the list. What???
"Amongst other ingredients"? Well, LIST them!
The product is made by Start Brands out of the UK so maybe that's why the ingredients aren't listed (or don't have to be?). By the way, the product photo on Amazon has a UK flag on it and my jar does not. Seems a tiny bit sketchy, does it not?
Anyway.
Here is a screenshot comparing the list that was on Amazon as an answer to someone's question (and the one shown on the dpi page for the barcode on my jar - 5060033823705. (And here is the head dpi page in case something changes.)
I went ahead and got it because I really needed something for that stain. Of the currently almost 30 thousand reviews, 85% are 4- and 5-star. Most critical reviews are to do with it not living up to what other products can do.
I didn't take a Before photo because I wasn't thinking about this review at that moment. But the un-treated stain was really brown. Think badly stained teeth. The treated area is much, much better.
I think one more treatment ought to do it
Once I saw how well this worked on the stain that had taken up a lease on my counter, I cleaned everything I could with the paste. I cleaned around the faucets and along the edges of the sink. The hard water here does a number on the faucets and The Pink Stuff has those gleaming like new money. My counters are so clean that I was worried about how nasty they might have been before. Makes you think of those pressure washing Before-and-Afters
Okay - maybe not THIS bad...
And then I thought of this and got sidetracked watching 10 more full episodes:
Anyway.
Yep, The Pink Stuff works. If you get it, be careful what you use it on. The paste is super gritty but the grit is so fine that you might think it's safe on surfaces where it's not. (Did that even make sense?)
By the way, another thing I noticed is that the cleaning rags I used the paste with were amazingly soft after I rinsed them. I almost want to treat my bath towels with it just to see what happens. Maybe I will do a test on an old towel. Hmmm...
Peace
--Free
P.S.: I see that on the Startdrops Store on Amazon that The Pink Stuff can also be had in a foam, spray, etc. I see no reason to buy another version. If I want, I can dilute the paste with a lot of water. Maybe there's a reason to get the other products but I see no reason. The paste was about $10 for 1.1lbs. I'm sure I can find it cheaper at Walmart, Walgreens, or some other store.
I love using things that I think my elders might have liked. This is why I use cast iron and Borax and started putting bleach in my dishwater from the time I started doing dishes. I got it from my mama, as the song says. This is how I also learned - long before Nestles did - about adding fresh fruit and/or canned fruit nectar to my iced teas.
One thing I think that my mother and grandmothers might have is this:
That's a Fels Naptha laundry bar. I learned about it while looking for another soap bar that my mother did use: Zote. She used a big pink bar of Zote to pre-treat stains. And, listen, my mother was a laundry goddess. She got clothes so clean that you'd think they were new. She ironed and folded so beautifully that other military wives asked for tips. I'm serious. To this day, my two older brothers can iron and fold better than a professional laundry service. They got it from our mama. (I don't know what happened to my skills. Right this minute, I have fitted bedsheets rolled up in the top of my linen closet... So sad.)
By the way, this is my old Zote bar I put aside once I got the better Fels Naptha:
Warning: a really important difference between Zote and Fels Naptha! I know that some people use Zote as a bath soap. You cannot do this with Fels. As a matter of fact, I make sure to use gloves when using it because it irritates my sensitive skin. Although Naptha is no longer an ingredient in Fels Naptha soap, there is something strong in it that I didn't like on my skin.
These are the ingredients in the Fels Naptha. (These are not on the package; I had to go to the Purex site for them.)
Anyway, I usually can find a good laundry bar in Walmart but we all know how I hate leaving the house. When I checked on Amazon, I was amazed at the choices. Then I saw the Fels Naptha and... it looked really familiar. It was cheap so I ordered a few bars and when I got them, I remembered the smell. I am pretty sure that this is one of the soap bars my mother used!
The best thing about Fels Naptha is the smell. It's very vivid and bright and "clean" smelling. It's hard to describe but I like to keep one bar in the closet with my dirty clothes basket. The scent masks that icky odor of dirty clothes and slightly damp towels. When you wash with it, it gets rid of nasty odors in the clothes but doesn't leave a strong scent behind.
Using Fels is easy because it's so pliable. Some laundry bars can be almost rock hard. I could use Zote as a weapon if needed, but Fels is more like a medium soft wax. I like to cut the bars down into pieces. I even grated one part of a bar so I could add the shavings to the wash water. Also, I added some of the shavings to a bottle of water that I use to spray down the sink and around the faucet.
This soap is really versatile. Because of the clean scent that it leaves behind, I like to spray the soapy water into the toilet bowl for scrubbing. I also wipe down the shower curtains with some of the water and I love cleaning the hard water spots around the faucets with some of the soap.
As far as stain removal, the soap works best if you get to the stain before it sets, of course. I did try using it on some older stains and it worked better on non-greasy food stains. I did get some turmeric off of a kitchen towel by applying some of the Fels Naptha right away. Turmeric stains are a disaster if you don't catch them asap. The Fels only did a so-so job of getting most stains out of white kitchen towels. I've had better luck with other fabric cleaners.
To be totally honest I give this a 3 out of 5 as far as for laundry use. Personally, I like this more as a general cleaning bar than as a laundry agent. I add some shavings to the laundry just because it gives clothes a nice fresh clean scent. And, as a mention, our laundry room doesn't have the hottest of water and the soap shavings did melt in the wash cycle, thank goodness. What I have done laundry-wise is to start applying some Fels to stains before I toss items into the dirty clothes hamper. Hopefully, this will help when I finally get around to doing laundry every week...
Mainly, I use this around the kitchen and bathroom to clean counters, around the sink and, as I mentioned, the shower and toilet. I am in love with the scent. It reminds me of wash days back when I was young.
The soap is so incredibly cheap that I paid $0.88 per bar and I see that the price has not yet changed as I type this. I cut up one bar in fourths to basically place pieces in cabinets and under sinks for odor control. I'm currently using a piece of one bar in the kitchen and one in the bathroom. From that same bar, I shaved enough to make soapy water for a spray bottle that I cart from kitchen to bath to laundry room. I am about to buy another trio to give to neighbors because we all tend to share things like this.
I thought that I was being thrifty and smart by finding so many uses for the soap but then I sawthis listand, wow. (NOTE: The page loaded funny for me. Just scroll down and you should see the entire article.) At least now I see why the soap works so well on the hard water stains around my faucet. Here is another helpful post with some history of and uses for Fels Naptha.
So, I feel like I have found something my mother would love - or probably did love. It's affordable and versatile so it's going to remain a part of my housecleaning arsenal. I'm not kidding when I say this is the kind of thing the women in my family would like getting as stocking stuffers.
Peace
--Free
I fell so in love with this song after hearing a brief snippet
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