The bathroom is a real hot spot for making changes to the amount of toxins and artificial chemicals in your environment. In the bathroom, we often expose large amounts of skin to various substances as we wash our bodies. The bathroom is also one of the places that requires regular domestic cleaning London to make sure that germs are kept under control. The following checklist is a starting point for making small changes to improve your immediate environment and living more naturally.
* Shampoo is very harsh – the basic cleansing ingredient is the same as the one used in dishwashing detergent. Instead of washing your hair with shampoo, use soap gel (this writer’s children used to refer to soap gel as “soapoo”). To make soap gel, chop up a bar of regular soap or else save thin slivers of bar soap that are too flimsy to wash with, put them in a sturdy container and pour boiling water over them. Leave this to sit and cool to a transluscent gel. Add a few drops of essential oil to the gel if you like, and decant it into a bottle. This mixture can be used for more than just shampoo – it is also good for cleaning floors, washing cars and as liquid handsoap.
* Don’t use artificial air fresheners to remove toilet pongs. Instead, open the window and let fresh air do its work. Other stink-busters include burning matches, candles or incense (this burns the methane responsible for the stink) or making your own air freshener from essential oil and plain water.
* Fluoride in the toothpaste is rather dubious. Switch to a no-fluoride brand or clean your teeth the old fashioned way using table salt or baking soda (have a glass of water on hand – both of these taste pretty strong). If you need to cut down on your sodium intake (and thus need to avoid salt and soda) and can’t afford no-fluoride toothpaste, use only a tiny amount of regular toothpaste – a blob the size of a pea is ample for an adult; a mere smear for children.
* Bubble baths should be avoided if you have sensitive skin. Other ways to make baths fun and luxurious as well as natural are to add home-made bath salts, bath oils or bath vinegars. Simply mix the oil/salt/vinegar with essential oil and leave it to stand a week or so before using (but you can use it straight away). Or imitate the voluptuous Cleopatra and add milk to your bath.
* You do not need to pour large amounts of disinfectant down the toilet in an attempt to kill germs. All this disinfectant will just flush away down the drain next time someone uses the loo. Use vinegar, salt, tea tree oil or vodka to wipe around the toilet seat and rim, and use elbow grease to remove everything else inside the bowl.
* For women: menstruating is messy, but you should avoid flushing sanitary products down the lavatory. If they don’t block your toilet, they will cause problems further down the line. They also cause a waste problem if you put them in the bin and then send them to a landfill. If you’re squeamish, the best option is to avoid using panty liners on an everyday basis (you can wash your underpants, can’t you?) and to use cotton (preferably unbleached) tampons which are biodegradable. For the less squeamish, try washable, reusable products such as the Mooncup.
* Baking soda is the best thing for cleaning the bath and basin, as it cleans off the dreaded grey ring around the bath, removes soap scum and gets the taps sparkling. It doesn’t scratch and it rinses off easily.
* Vinegar kills mould and is great for cleaning glass, including glass shower doors. As an added bonus, it can also be used diluted as a hair rinse or a skin toner, or even as a deodorant. Add essential oil for extra anti-bacterial properties and a nice smell.
* Conserving water and caring for the environment is part of living naturally. The bath is one of the best sources of “grey water” available and is easy to move around to the garden or wherever else you want it – use a bucket to move it or siphon it out into the garden. Limit the amount of baths you have – a quick shower is all you need for everyday washing. Keep big hot baths as a treat and/or share the water.
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The good news for anyone with an ecological conscience is that most traditional Christmas decorations are made from natural materials rather from plastics. Using natural materials not only means that you aren’t using up something that is sourced from a non-renewable resource (fossil fuels) but also that when you dispose of your decorations (if they get tatty or you don’t want to save them for next year), they will break down naturally.
Some natural materials to decorate with are obvious. Christmas trees, bunches of holly, sprigs of real mistletoe and poinsettia plants are all natural. Many places grow these commercially for sale at Christmas time. Poinsettias can be grown indoors with a bit of care, but to make sure that they produce their flamboyant red stars at the right time, you need to give them special treatment. If you buy a potted poinsettia for this Christmas, be scrupulous about cutting off the dead flower heads and don’t give it much water until about April – it originates from the dryish areas of Mexico, after all. Around April, cut it back to 4 inches high and put it somewhere warm. During autumn days, it needs to have a minimum of 14 hours darkness in every 24 – the hot water cupboard would work nicely for this. This treatment gives you the best chance of keeping your potted poinsettia alive for a second year.
Ivy is a traditional part of Christmas decorations, mostly because it’s an evergreen. Hedera helix or English ivy grows very easily – too easily, some might say. It can induce an allergic reaction in some, but it is not a contact poison for most people, unlike poison ivy. The long trailing stems of ivy make it perfect for twisting into wreaths, or even decorating a Christmas tree. An ivy wreath is easier to make than a daisy chain. You can also include other evergreen plants into an ivy wreath – if you’ve had to trim any lower branches off a Christmas tree to get the tree into a bucket, these work brilliantly – and you can tie basic single granny knots in the ivy to hold the other materials in. An ivy wreath looks good as a centrepiece on the dinner table surrounding a ring of candles or even a Yule log.
A Yule log was traditionally a special log that was ritually burned on the hearth. However, you can make a permanent Yule log by turning it into a natural candle-holder. Drill out holes in a log that you like the look of that are large enough to hold candles then put your candles in. As a variation on the Advent calendar custom, have five candles – four ordinary white ones, then a large red one in the centre (variation: four small purple candles and one large white one). One candle is to be lit on every Sunday leading up to Christmas, starting with the last Sunday in November, leaving the central candle for Christmas day itself.
Pinecones have a lot of potential for natural decorations. They are especially good because they are more permanent, unlike holly, ivy, mistletoe and Christmas trees, in that they do not wilt at the end of the celebrations. Pinecones can be hung on a tree plain, using ribbons, or you can embellish them with glitter or fake snow (use correction fluid on the edges of the scales rather than using aerosol sprays) before hanging them up.
But that’s just the start of things you can do with pinecones, especially as they “take to” any sort of glue that will stick to wood. With a few more additions, a pinecone can become an angel or a reindeer – or anything else you fancy. How about making a crib scene out of pinecones (using, of course, real dried grass in the manger)? And if you live in an apartment where you are not permitted to have a real Christmas tree, you can make a miniature Christmas tree from a large pinecone.
Oranges and whole cloves can be used to make some very traditional Christmas decorations (pomanders) that you can use to keep moths away. These will need to be made ahead of time so they dry properly. Take an orange and tie two ribbons around it at right angles to each other (when you look down on your pomander, the ribbons should form a cross) then poke whole cloves into the skin all over the orange where the ribbons aren’t. Hang the pomander up somewhere dark and dry (e.g. a hot water cupboard) to dry out. Then hang it on the tree. You could also hang real fresh oranges on the tree – the bright colour looks very striking against the dark green and they make a nice healthy snack while opening presents.
Ornaments made from salt dough that is baked and dried are natural. Alternatively, make edible ones out of gingerbread and eat them as part of the celebrations.
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Some things you should definitely take to the doctor to be checked out. Strange lumps and bumps with no obvious explanation, odd rashes, extreme weight loss, constant raging thirst or lethargy that just doesn’t go away – these should all be taken to a doctor.
However, you can treat some things yourself. In fact, the writer that this doctor consults is quite happy for patients to treat themselves for minor ailments. To put it in a more practical way, being able to treat yourself for some things will save you the doctor’s bill. In the past, home remedies were used quite widely and reasonably effectively. Modern pharmaceuticals and lab-made medicines are excellent, but natural ones as well as natural cleaners can be just as good sometimes.
For all the remedies in this article, the old advice applies: if symptoms persist, please see your doctor.
Sore throats: keeping your fluid levels up and sipping warm drinks is as good as any patent medicine. Any warm drink will do, but for an extra boost to your immune system, fresh lemon juice and honey stirred into hot water tastes nice. If you have a particularly miserable and painful cold that isn’t just painful in the throat but in the nose and sinuses, too, the time-honoured method of soothing the pain is strong alcohol mixed with the hot water, lemon and honey. However, one that also works quite well but is better for your overall health than strong spirits is cayenne pepper or dried chillis. This is not for everyone, but the capiscain in the chilli or cayenne releases endorphins – natural pain killers – around the mouth and throat area. It’s like detonating a bomb in your mouth, but it seems to blast away the pain – besides, if you’re feeling miserable enough with a cold, you’ll try it even if you don’t like spicy foods. Another sore throat remedy is to make a syrup by mixing raw onions with honey, leaving it for an hour or so and straining the liquid off.
Acne & athletes’ foot: Tea tree oil dabbed onto the site neat with a cotton bud works as a powerful antiseptic to clear up little spots.
Stings: First of all, if you have been stung by a bee, remove the sting. Do not grip it with tweezers or fingernails, as this will squeeze more venom into the system. Scrape it out instead. For beestings, dab on a paste of baking soda and water. For wasp stings, vinegar is widely recommended, as the acid in the vinegar neutralizes the alkaline venom. Watch out for allergies – if someone is allergic to stings, see a doctor as soon as possible.
Yeast infections (thrush or candida): This is caused by an imbalance of bacteria, and often flares up after a course of antibiotics, or by overuse of douching. The best treatment is to replace the good bacteria by topical application of live yoghurt to the site, although eating live yoghurt helps, too. If itching is extreme, an ice cube can help numb the area and relieve this.
Urinary tract infections/bladder infections: Keep your fluids up to flush out the bacteria and don’t “hang on” when you need to urinate but get to the toilet as soon as possible. Cranberry juice is the best remedy, as it contains a principle that kills the bacteria causing the infection. However, if the infection starts to track its way up the renal tubes to your kidneys – you will feel this as persistent lower back pain – then see your doctor.
Persistent dry coughs: Most of the patent medicines for this used to contain strong alcohol – I’m certain that the cough medicine my mother gave me was cherry liqueur. Don’t take more than a spoonful, and this will cause drowsiness.
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We all want our home to be healthy and natural. However, no matter how hard we try, people are going to get sick and throw up (whether this is courtesy of a bug brought home from school/work or courtesy of too much homebrewed cider, we won’t enquire). And if we try to create a household containing more than one species, the inevitable will happen while we try to teach our cats and dogs the appropriate places to dispose of body waste.
Now – how do you deal with this naturally without resorting to all those artificial disinfectants and deodorants? Most of us will, let’s be realistic, abandon our back-to-nature principles when confronted with a pile of poop, pee or puke, but it is possible to deal with these naturally.
Step one is to remove the offending substance. Don your rubber gloves and hold your breath. Use a towel to scoop up larger piles of ick (e.g. vomit) and use loo paper or a paper towel to scoop up smaller bits (poop). For pee, pop a very absorbent towel over it and let the towel soak it up. Then flush the solid ick down the lavatory – it’s biodegradable and will break down without any bother. Clean up any remainder with loo paper.
Don’t use a good towel for this process. Use an older one or sacrifice one. Once you’ve cleaned up the mess, the best way of dealing with lingering germs is pouring boiling water over it. This will kill the germs. After that (and after all the visible grot is off the towel), then wash as normal. The towel may end up a little stained, but it will be safe to use.
The second step is to remove any visible mess or stain on the carpet or floor. This is easy on a hard surface such as linoleum, but a bit harder on carpet. The easiest way is to use a stout scrubbing brush and some soapy water. Make sure the soapy water is not hot – blood heat at the warmest – as hot water can set a stain into the carpet, especially in the case of vomit, which may very well contain protein. Scrub like heck and then blot up the remainder with another towel.
Next, you’ll have to kill any germs and deal with any lingering smell. Getting rid of the lingering smell is especially important in the case of animal pee – if the place still smells of pee (to a dog or cat’s nose, not yours) then the pet in question will conclude that this spot is OK to use as a toilet.
Killing germs is best done with one of the disinfectant essential oils such as lavender, eucalyptus or tea tree oil. Add a few drops to some dilute vinegar and spray on. If you can haul the dirtied item out into full sunshine, this will also work wonders. Hard linoleum can also be sterilised with boiling water. And remember that the soap will have done a lot of work. Germs won’t survive if they don’t have food and water, so if the area is thoroughly cleaned and dried, you’ll be OK.
The final touch to rid soft surfaces of any lingering smell is to sprinkle baking soda onto the spot. This absorbs smells. Then vacuum it up.
Never, ever try to vacuum up vomit. Even if you’re blind drunk, try to remember this. The vacuum cleaner will stink of puke forever.
