Some of these recipes for natural carpet cleaning products will require a bit of hunting around for obscure ingredients – try your local chemist or even ask a high school chemistry teacher where you can get them from.
Stain-removing carpet soap
* 4 oz Fuller’s earth
* 1 oz turpentine (preferably the plant-sourced variety; mineral turps will do instead but this does give off foul-smelling fumes and isn’t as natural. This ingredient is added as a solvent, so if you can’t get hold of natural plant turpentine, then you could try substituting strong alcohol, which is another natural solvent often used in cleaning products)
* 8 oz potash (aka potassium carbonate)
* ordinary soft soap, grated
Melt the soap in a double boiler or microwave set on low until it becomes gooey. Stir in the other ingredients and blend well. Store in an airtight jar. One variation on this recipe is to use soap gel instead of and make a carpet shampoo. A second variation is to add about 10–20 drops of essential oil of your choice to the ingredients.
Home-made dry cleaning carpet shampoo
This is good for using on carpets with natural fibres that have a tendency to run colour – handmade rugs from exotic places tend to fit this description.
Mix Fuller’s earth and water to make a paste. Apply this paste to the spot on the carpet you want cleaned and allow it to dry in place before vacuuming off.
Carpet fragrance
Commercially produced carpet scents of the shake-on-and-vacuum-off are among some of the worst offenders for sources of household toxins – even worse than window cleaning products, as people (especially people under the age of five) often get close to the carpets and breathe them in. This recipe will have your carpets smelling nice and fresh – both by eliminating foul odours and by putting a fresh scent into your house – but without the hazardous toxins.
* 1 cup of baking soda
* 20 drops essential oil (suggested oils: lavender, lemon, neroli, grapefruit, petitgrain or cinnamon)
Blend together well and store in a screw-top jar in a dark cupboard for a week to allow the essential oils to permeate the baking soda. Sprinkle the powder as generously or as sparingly as you like over your carpets and leave it to sit for about five minutes or more to absorb any unpleasant odours. Then vacuum the powder up. As an added bonus, the scent will get blown out the back of your vacuum cleaner as you continue cleaning the whole house.
Fleas-be-gone
While regular vacuuming is your best ally against preventing fleas from infesting your pets and your furniture, sometimes you need a bit of extra help. This spray will chase the fleas away thanks to the pennyroyal. After all, the Latin name for pennyroyal is Mentha pulgefugium, which means “mint that makes fleas run away”.
* 20 drops essential oil of pennyroyal
* ½ pint vinegar
* ½ pint water
Shake the ingredients together in a spray-top bottle and squirt lightly over any carpets or pet bedding you suspect to be infested. If you can’t get essential oil of pennyroyal, boil the water and vinegar together and add a large bunch of fresh pennyroyal to the mixture and allow it to steep, covered, until cool. Strain and bottle, then use as normal.
No matter what you play, sports gear gets grubby if it’s used seriously. But how do you clean sports gear effectively without wrecking it and without resorting to harsh chemicals? Well, what cleaning product or method you use really depends on what equipment you’re talking about. But the golden rule is: the sooner you get onto it, the better.
Resist the temptation to dry clean the sports clothing if you’re trying to stick to natural methods of house cleaning – the chemicals used in dry cleaning are vile. While this how the professionals clean their gear (I guess), dry cleaning is best avoided.
Sports shoes/trainers: The worst bits of mud (and other substances) left on the bottom of sports shoes can be removed by scraping it off with a stiff scrubbing brush. Best to do this outside, or you’ll be left cleaning the floor as well. Mud can be sponged off trainers with a bit of warm water and maybe a bit of soap. White canvas shoes are best avoided, but if they get grass stains, you can clean these stains off with a bit of Sard Wonder Soap (it’s the eucalyptus oil that does the stain removal job) or sponging it with vodka or some other strong spirit before giving it a good wash in warm soapy water. It is possible to put trainers through the washing machine, but cheap ones aren’t so good for this because the inner soles are liable to come out. Best to do what you can with a scrubbing brush and warm water. Sprinkle baking soda inside smelly trainers to remove the stink.
Cricket clothes: What idiot decided that cricket gear ought to be spotless white? Thankfully, modern fabrics are a bit more stain resistant. Treat grass stains by rubbing the spot with Sard Wonder Soap or vodka and leaving it for a bit before washing. The red stains appearing on a bowler’s trousers from polishing a ball are less alarming than they look and wash off easily in a regular wash load. Get onto stains the same day as they occur. Soaking also helps. In the case of cricket matches lasting more than one day, having two (or more) pairs of cricket trousers saves a world of bother and frantically trying to get things dry overnight in time for the start of the next day.
Football gear: Clean grass stains as described above. To remove mud, give it a good soaking in warm soapy water before throwing in the wash.
Rugby gear: Gets even grubbier than football gear and also has the chance of getting bloodstains. This is a pain, especially in the case of replica England or Wallabies shirts (those with replica Scotland, France or All Blacks shirts are luckier). Clean the bloodstains first, if any. Wash these out with cold water first before dealing with mud. However, grass stains can be treated at the same time as bloodstains. Hint: brush off some of the thicker bits of mud manually first with a stiff scrubbing brush to get the worst off.
Athletic cups/cricket boxes: While these don’t get as visibly grubby as other gear, they do get a bit sweaty. While it is possible to pop these items into the dishwasher, most of us wince at the idea of something that’s been “down there” in with the stuff we eat off. Best to clean these separately by hand in warm soapy water. Dry with a regular tea towel and pop that into the wash.
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Here is a carpet cleaning tip from me: Rug Doctor is a waste of time and money unless you need the muscle workout 
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Aloe vera plants are very handy little critters to have around the home, especially if you’re trying to cut down on the amount of chemicals and toxins you are exposed to and live more naturally.
In Great Britain, aloe vera plants are going to be found inside your home rather than out in your garden (unless you have a hothouse) as they are desert plants and, as you have probably noticed, England isn’t one. Aloe vera plants like a nice, sunny position and well-drained soil, but they hate frost. They don’t need an awful lot of feeding and shouldn’t be over-watered. They can be treated like any other indoor cactus or succulent… which is what they are. Aloe vera plants also have the agreeable habit of spawning lots of little aloe vera plants, and if you have plenty of pots, some good potting mix and a vigorous mother plant, you could probably come up with a few little aloe vera plants for sale.
Unless you want to keep the little baby aloe vera plants. Keeping them is a good idea, because once you have discovered the uses of aloe vera, you will be using it all the time.
How do you use aloe vera? In general, what you use is the gel. Getting the gel is easy. Simply snap off one of the big outside leaves or part of the leaves (OK, if you want to be scientific and technical, what you’ll be snapping off is the stems; the actual leaves are the little spiky bits along the edges). Inside the leaf (we’ll call it that for convenience), you’ll find a clear, clumpy pulp. Squish this pulp up with a fingernail or a teaspoon and it will turn to a clear gel. This is what you will use.
What do you use aloe vera for? Occasionally, you will find bottles and drinks at your local health food shop that contain aloe vera and recommend it as a digestive aid and detoxifying agent. You can use it like this, but it tastes horribly bitter and it has a laxative effect (in fact, aloe vera was a popular laxative or purge used in the Middle Ages). You have been warned.
Aloe vera gel is best used externally, as it is excellent for the skin. For everyday use, it can be used as a light moisturiser, and it can also make a great hair gel. You won’t be able to spike a punk hairdo with aloe vera gel, but you will be able to set curls, control a few flyaway hairs and give a short hairdo a bit of lift. Aloe vera gel can also be used as a sunscreen. It isn’t SPF 30 or anything like that, but it does give a little bit of protection against excess sun exposure.
Aloe vera can also be used on the skin to help heal burns of various kinds, including sunburn. After you have done the usual first aid treatment for a burn (running it under cold water for 10 minutes), then apply a thin coating of aloe vera gel.
Aloe vera is also considered to be a good remedy for rashes, dry skin, bruises, fungal infections and other general skin ailments. While it may not be an absolute cure-all, it certainly won’t hurt and it will do some good for most conditions. Some writers suggest that it should not be used on open cuts and wounds, as it may slow the healing process – but it is fine to use on scrapes and chapped skin.
