Ecofriendly Laundry Tips from Crunchy Clean

Just a few eco friendly laundry tips from Crunchy Clean:

• For an excellent softener and static cling preventer, use ¼- ½ cup of vinegar in your rinse. If you love yummy smells, add 5-20 drops of essential oil to a gallon of vinegar. The vinegar also kills bacteria and prevents the buildup of detergent residue. (Please don’t use dryer sheets because many of them contain the same chemicals found in liquid fabric softeners. Besides them being hazardous to your health, they aren’t biodegradable.)
• Need a great laundry brightener: Add 1/2 cup of strained lemon juice to the rinse cycle and/or use hydrogen peroxide instead of chlorine bleach.
• Wash with cold water whenever possible – saves 80-90% of energy costs related to washing!
• For an extra dirty/stained/stinky load of diapers, add either small amount of Dawn, 4-6 squirts of Simple Green All Purpose Cleaner, or a squirt of Biokleen’s Bac-out.
• For stains, you can either soak in warm water mixed with a few tablespoons of Crunchy Clean Detergent or you can make a paste with Crunchy Clean detergent and water and let it sit for a few hours and then wash.
• Allow clothes to air dry on a clothes line rather than using your dryer. Sunlight, which is free, is a natural bleaching agent; it also disinfects the clothes.
  
• To reduce static, don’t overdry your clothes if you use the dryer.
• Reusable bags are excellent- did you know that 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are used annually worldwide and only 1-3% of those are recycled? Check out our selection of reusable bags that can be reused for many uses, including sending them back and getting more CrunchyClean Detergent!

CRUNCHY CLEAN Hyena Cart
CRUNCHY CLEAN Etsy Page

Homemade GREEN Recipes for Cleansers

Green Cleaning Recipes - make a green cleaning gift basket for Christmas gifts :)

Pot & Pan Soak

Baking soda
Vinegar to dampen

Sprinkle baking soda in your pots and pans with stuck-on food. Pour in enough vinegar to dampen the baking soda and let it bubble. Even after the bubbling stops, let it do its work for an hour or two - overnight for stubborn, burnt-on food. The next day you should be able to simply wipe the dirt off - no hard scrubbing needed!

Scouring Cleanser

1/4 cup baking soda
water to dampen

Works well for a light scrub over faucets and light soil. You must rinse thoroughly, though! Baking soda can cling to surfaces.

More Abrasive Scouring Cleanser

1/4 cup salt
1/4 cup lemon juice

This is a great scouring cleanser for wood-block cutting boards, sinks, even stove tops. Try to keep lemons on hand and just squeeze a halved lemon onto the surface to be cleaner (you'll get about 1-2 tablespoons of juice per lemon half). You can also use prepackaged lemon juice, but be aware that there are preservatives such as sodium benzoate, which is not healthy to eat, so isn't really healthy to clean with, either!

Shiny Mirror Spray

1 cup vinegar
3 cups water
10 drops lavender oil

Keep a batch of this in a marked spray bottle - it's better than commercial window cleaners when it comes to streaking. Use a cotton rag for wiping it down (paper towels often leave tiny bits of paper and paper dust behind). And think about it - vinegar is edible, water is healthful, lavender oil promotes a sense of well-being. This stuff is actually good for you!

Quick Toilet Fizz

1 - 2 denture tablets

Drop in an inexpensive denture tablet between cleanings to release debris and remove calcium deposits.

Floor Wax

2 cups vinegar
2 cups mineral oil

Mix together and apply with a clean mop.

Alice's All Purpose Cleaner
2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
1 teaspoon borax
1.5 cups of very hot distilled water
1/4 cup of castille soap or dishwashing soap (I do less)
10-15 drops of essential oils

Pick your favorite recipes - I'd do an all purpose cleaner with a cute homemade label, some washclothes or microfiber clothes (Get huge packs at wholesale stores like Sam's or Costco!), a scouring cleanser in a parmesan cheese shaker, some CrunchyClean Laundry Detergent, a CrunchyClean Linen Spray and some homemade shiny mirror spray. Voila!

Remember - order by tomorrow to ensure delivery by Christmas!

How I Wash Diapers

There are a LOT of variations on diaper washing. We have been cloth diapering for over a year, and I have to admit that with changes in your DD's intake, sometimes you need to adjust your washing routine. Cloth diapering isn't finite, but it changes pretty frequently so you have to be somewhat flexible. This is our basic schedule -

CrunchyClean is clean rinsing, so you need less washing and rinsing then you are probably used to (and I have a HE frontloader, so adjust accordingly):

1. Cold rinse with no spin to get remainder of poop off and not set the stains in - no detergent (makes diapers heavier so more water in the wash). I add 4-5 squirts of Biokleen's Bacout if the diapers are stinky or super dirty - these are live enzymes, so I don't add often but they do help immensely! If you don't rinse well enough, they will irritate baby's bums so be careful.

2. Hot or warm wash with 1/2 to 1 T of CrunchyClean. If the diapers are super dirty (lots of poops like when she teethes or else I let them sit a few days) I do a hot wash.

3. IF I added bacout, I do an extra rinse. Otherwise I don't do an extra rinse

:)

Happy Cloth Diaper Washing!!