Sunday, March 7, 2010

Minimalist Cleaning

I'm feeling very minimalist lately as you might have noticed ... I always thought I was but recently I have realised there is a whole new level of anti-consumerism I can aspire too (eye-rolls from the mother in law no doubt).

If think we could even live in an RV I should at least be able to seriously declutter our wee house (its about 1200 square feet so perfectly sized for 4 of us).

One of the areas that is getting some of my attention these days is the cleaning cupboard. Actually cupboards, I have both a laundry one and a kitchen one, and they were embarassingly full. I have written before about using natural cleaners, and I do ... but every now and then I buy something when we are on holiday, or the mother in law buys something to help out, and ta-da, cleaning products start to take over the cupboards.

What would I take into the RV?

- baking soda and vinegar
- ecostore multipurpose cleaner
- ecostore dishwashing liquid
- ecostore washing machine powder
- napisan (because sometimes you need more grunt with kids!)
- essential oils (lavender, clove and tea-tree)
- a few spray bottles
- a copy of Shannon Lush's 'Spotless'
- a large pile of dishcloths and teatowels.

I am pretty sure I could clean everything with these ... baking soda and vinegar clean most things, lavendar repels insects and flies, clove repels mould, tea-tree is antiseptic, multipurpose cleaner in a spray bottle for most other things.

Now, I just have to be brave enough to bin the last of my 'extra' cleaning supplies ... wish me luck!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

if you don't want to bin them, you could always offer any fullish ones away on freecycle :)

and glad to see you posting again :)

- Beth

hanna said...

yip yip yip, totally with you on all that. Though I've bout the ecostore soaker this time instead of napisan - seems to be going well. - oh and now I don't need the multipurpose spray either with my home made stuff ;)

Annicles said...

Do it - you'll be so happy!

Indigo, madder, marigold said...

That's awesome...we have so much stuff we are told we need. What a great simplification.

Non Consumer Girl said...

I have been using bicarb and vinegar for a couple of years now.

Every so often, I need to resort to the "grunt" cleaners, but these occasions are few and far between.

Non Consumer Girl said...

I have been using bicarb and vinegar for a couple of years now.

Every so often, I need to resort to the "grunt" cleaners, but these occasions are few and far between.

Gypsy said...

Ooohh, its a scary thing this minimilism. Thanks for your support. My under sink shelf looks so spacious!

PlanningQueen said...

I am a big fan of ecoSTORE products and particularly love their baby range.

Carla Melton said...

Hi Gypsy, I met you on Donna's Christopherus site. I was in Australia, but now I'm back in Auckland. Somewhere I have your email. If you still have my details, look me up. It would be lovely to meet up.

EcoMum said...

Hi, Lianne from Organic Baby :)
Totally agree on the minimalist approach to cleaning products, although my cleaning has got a little too minimalist lately! (perhaps a little less online distraction and more housework would help!)
I am just wondering if you can change the link on my button (on your site) to www.organicbaby.co.nz ...because it is throwing out crawl errors on Google and I want to make better freinds with Google. Thanks, appreciate it :)

Gypsy said...

Carla I don't have your details but email me nzteaparty at gmail dot com!

Lianne I couldn't work out how to do the change - the html coding was going to the .co.nz site so I just deleted the button in the meantime. Sorry, I am a bit of a technodunce.