Cleanliness, health and harmony
Whether your home is large or small, city or country, it is a space that should embrace you with comfort, health, beauty, and a sense of harmony.
As author Cheryl Mendelson says: “When you take care of the house, you use your head, heart and hands to create a home. Cleaning is an art: it combines intuition and physical ability to create comfort, health, beauty, order and security.. “
Like Feng Shui, good cleaning implies our commitment to ourselves through attention to our health and our environment. We are deeply affected by the environments we inhabit. It is beneficial to us that these environments support our health and well-being. An easy way to do this is by choosing cleaning products.
Did you know that indoor air pollution often exceeds outdoor air pollution? One of the reasons is due to the type of cleaning products we use regularly.
According to Real Simple Magazine, April 2009 Issue, the following inexpensive items can provide you with all-natural solutions for any home cleaning task.
- Lemons The acid in lemon juice removes dirt and stains. It is especially effective when mixed with salt and used as a scouring paste. Lemons cut through grease, remove odors, and even remove limescale.
- Essential oils. One of my favorites! When combined with white vinegar, tea tree oil cleans scraped floors. Orange oil is excellent for removing greasy and sticky elements. (Think chewing gum stuck to the carpet.) Lemon oil removes soap scum from shower doors, and lavender mixed with water is an excellent window cleaner that also repels flies.
- Castile liquid soap. This plant-based soap is gentle and comprehensive at removing dirt from floors, countertops, leather upholstery, sinks, showers, and even stoves and hoods.
- Borax. Add borax to your laundry detergent to make it more effective. Use it to clean your baseboards, countertops, and walls. Mix a little with water to make a paste and use it to clean your pots and pans. Borax is great at removing rust stains, put it down the toilet, soak it overnight, and remove the stains.
- Vinegar. Simple distilled white vinegar inhibits the growth of mold and mildew. Use it to clean your coffee maker, dishwasher, drains, floors, glassware, mineral deposit buildup on shower head and windows.
These five all-natural elements can tackle almost any home cleaning task without adding harmful pollutants to your environment and cost less than the alternatives. You have nothing to lose and you can improve your health and well-being by changing your cleaning products. Learning ways to live a better, healthier and more balanced life is the foundation of a sustainable life. And sustainable living is living with the principles of Feng Shui, you may not know!
Feng Shui is an appreciation and understanding of the importance of maintaining balance in all aspects of our life. When we embrace the principles of Feng Shui alongside sustainable lifestyle choices, we truly embrace health, harmony, and balance in our lives.