In a big bowl, mix together two parts bicarbonate of soda to one part salt, or pretty much any granular stuff that can be vacuumed up without problems (cornflour, salt, cocaine...). Some recipes use entirely baking soda but that gets expensive, so I 'dilute' it with salt. It needs to be more than half bicarbonate fo soda since that's the stuff that absorbs smells (mix with water and wipe inside of fridge to get rid of odd smells; leave tiny dish of it at back of fridge to prevent weird smells).
Add essential oils - If I use oneof those tubs of bicarb they sell in supermarket bakery aisles and half as much salt, I'll add a total of 15 drops of oils.
Lemon, lime, orange: all those citrus ones are good.
Thyme, rosemary, sage all have a kind of clean smell although a few people find it a bit hospital-y.
Lavender, rose-geranium: both lovely floral ones.
Cedarwood, ginger, rosemary makes a good autumny mix.
Last Christmas I used frankincense and myrrh and loved the combination; less cloying than I expected, very fresh-smelling.
Mix the oils well into the powder to work it right through. If not using immediately, cover the bowl with clingfilm.
Either scatter by hand or put into a spare flour-dredger and shake. Or I suppose an old shake'n'vac dispenser!
Leave at least an hour, ideally overnight (shut pets out of room) and then vacuum up.
You can use the same essential oils with a litre of water and a few drops of alcohol to mix them, in a plant-mister to use as an air-freshener that won't set off asthma or stink foully of chemicals!
***
IMPORTANT - some essential oils are dangerous to some people. Be extremely careful round anyone pregnant or with epilepsy.
***
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Autumn Cleaning and homemade potions
I posted this elsewhere, but thought it makes a good introduction to some posts I'll be putting up this month, tagged 'cleaning'. Homemade cleaning things that don't cost a fortune, cost the earth or cost your health...
Officially in the UK, September 1st is the first day of autumn. Here we are. I just went out and checked and can see two yellow leaves on the trees round here, so it's not exactly a blaze of autumn colour yet!
It feels different... the last few days have felt autumnier somehow - I keep getting urges (oh no! Urges! No, not that sort...).
Urges to cook hot dinners instead of salads... last night I used up a long-frozen leftover lump of roast beef: sliced and wrapped in tinfoil with some ice-cubes of beef-stock, surrounded by a few shallots and fat cloves of garlic roasting in their skins to be squeezed out like savoury toothpaste onto the plate; tiny potatoes roasting in their skins to be split and buttered and peppered and fresh chives chopped over them; at the last minute a tinfoil bundle of chopped black kale* with a sprinkling of water to steam...
Urges to mend; finally to get round to all those lost buttons, dropped hems, taking-up of straps on vest-tops...
Urges to launder - well, okay I have a strange relationship with my laundry! But even I have a stronger than usual urge to launder my summer things to put away surrounded by dried lemon peel and herb sachets and stems of lemon-balm wrapped in scraps of pretty fabrics, all to deter moths; to retrieve my winter woollies and heavy trousers and wash the months of storage out of them, giving them a misting as they hang on the line with a mixture of water, a few drops of rum, and lime and thyme oils (my new mixture for a really clean-smelling, fresh scent).
Urges to fall-clean - now why don't we in Britain have a phrase for this? We spring-clean along with America, but we don't appear to autumn-clean, so we borrow your phrase. Do Americans still fall-clean?
Packing away the summer months and re-instating the winter outfits for my rooms - the feather duvet (a 'downie' in Scotland and iirc a 'comforter' in the USA?) to go under my quilt, turning my quilt form its summer old-gold to its winter muted deep red; the uncurtained light-flooded windows covered by heavy rich deep-green velvet curtains, turning my bed into something that Mary Queen of Scots might have slept in (and hurrah for charity shops)!
Emptying the shelves in my tiny kitchen and scrubbing them clean, drying them off and lining with pretty wrapping-paper before putting everything back onto them.
Finding the Kilner jars, and planning pickled onions and pickled red cabbage glowing rich deep brown and deep crimson red.
Anyone else getting a change in their housekeeping as the season tips over from summer carefree live-as-you-wish, to autumn's nest-making and stocking up against the winter to come?
*Scotland's dietary secrets: whilst famed for our deep-fried mars-bars, we actually have a heritage of wonderfully healthy food - kale is like cabbage but much lovelier!
Officially in the UK, September 1st is the first day of autumn. Here we are. I just went out and checked and can see two yellow leaves on the trees round here, so it's not exactly a blaze of autumn colour yet!
It feels different... the last few days have felt autumnier somehow - I keep getting urges (oh no! Urges! No, not that sort...).
Urges to cook hot dinners instead of salads... last night I used up a long-frozen leftover lump of roast beef: sliced and wrapped in tinfoil with some ice-cubes of beef-stock, surrounded by a few shallots and fat cloves of garlic roasting in their skins to be squeezed out like savoury toothpaste onto the plate; tiny potatoes roasting in their skins to be split and buttered and peppered and fresh chives chopped over them; at the last minute a tinfoil bundle of chopped black kale* with a sprinkling of water to steam...
Urges to mend; finally to get round to all those lost buttons, dropped hems, taking-up of straps on vest-tops...
Urges to launder - well, okay I have a strange relationship with my laundry! But even I have a stronger than usual urge to launder my summer things to put away surrounded by dried lemon peel and herb sachets and stems of lemon-balm wrapped in scraps of pretty fabrics, all to deter moths; to retrieve my winter woollies and heavy trousers and wash the months of storage out of them, giving them a misting as they hang on the line with a mixture of water, a few drops of rum, and lime and thyme oils (my new mixture for a really clean-smelling, fresh scent).
Urges to fall-clean - now why don't we in Britain have a phrase for this? We spring-clean along with America, but we don't appear to autumn-clean, so we borrow your phrase. Do Americans still fall-clean?
Packing away the summer months and re-instating the winter outfits for my rooms - the feather duvet (a 'downie' in Scotland and iirc a 'comforter' in the USA?) to go under my quilt, turning my quilt form its summer old-gold to its winter muted deep red; the uncurtained light-flooded windows covered by heavy rich deep-green velvet curtains, turning my bed into something that Mary Queen of Scots might have slept in (and hurrah for charity shops)!
Emptying the shelves in my tiny kitchen and scrubbing them clean, drying them off and lining with pretty wrapping-paper before putting everything back onto them.
Finding the Kilner jars, and planning pickled onions and pickled red cabbage glowing rich deep brown and deep crimson red.
Anyone else getting a change in their housekeeping as the season tips over from summer carefree live-as-you-wish, to autumn's nest-making and stocking up against the winter to come?
*Scotland's dietary secrets: whilst famed for our deep-fried mars-bars, we actually have a heritage of wonderfully healthy food - kale is like cabbage but much lovelier!
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