Products in Focus - Cleaning!
8th April 2023
Let's face it - cleaning is, by definition, a chore. But with the right tools, it can actually be quite painless, and, dare I admit it, occasionally enjoyable. I do get a bit of a rush seeing the end result!
I'm going to spend a bit of time today waxing poetic about one particular range of cleaning products - Nature Direct.
If anyone had told me 15 years that I would love cleaning products, I would have scoffed. Who loves cleaning products, after all?
A bit of back story... Twelve years ago, when my first-born started kinder, I reluctantly dragged myself to a fellow kinder mum's house to see the products for myself. I couldn't figure out a polite way to decline, so I figured I would maybe make some friends, have a cup of tea and then hightail it out of there as soon as it was polite to do so. I cynically thought that a range of natural cleaning products would either: (a) be ineffective; or (b) not actually be harmless at all. After all, petroleum comes out of the ground, too....
My powers of prediction were clearly lacking that day... What I saw amazed me, and, dare I say it, excited me. Who knew?!
The Nature Direct range covers all of our cleaning needs, from mould in the bathroom, to that grease-splattered stove. They also have an air cleaner that is fabulous, and actually works to rid the room of smells and VOCs.
Nature Direct products are Australian made, using 100% organically sourced ingredients, including pure essential oils. You can read each ingredient list in the product page for each product, and you can read more about the business there too (in the product description, and also in the expandable menu 'About Nature Direct' on the same page).
Their products come as concentrates, which you dilute into the spray bottles provided. This saves on shipping and packaging, as you just buy the refill bottles and add water. A 125mL bottle of concentrate makes 5 x 500mL spray bottles of cleaning product!
They also make a range of specialised cleaning cloths. A bit of an aside here... I was a bit miffed the first time I bought products from them, as I mistakenly thought I was getting a deal on the Pure Air Revitaliser machine but I got some free cleaning cloths instead. In my childish fit of pique, I tossed them under the laundry sink and didn't look at them again for another year. My old cleaning cloths fell apart, and I thought, well, fine, I have the stupid things under the sink, I might as well use them (cue the maturity)... And they were incredible!! Needless to say, I haven't looked back. Oh my goodness, the combination of their products and cleaning cloths make life so easy. If you're sitting there thinking, "Cool your jets. It's a cloth!" I want to tell you to come on over and try it out yourself. My original cloths from all those years ago are still going strong, wash after wash, year after year. I have replaced the Tough Guy cloths, as they were starting to wear, but the rest are still in great shape. They are made to last at least 300 washes.
Here are some applications for the products:
Greasy stovetop after frying steaks
I use Super Strength at full or half strength. I get the chunky bits of food off with a first pass of paper towel and Super Strength. Then I spray the backsplash and stove with Super Strength again, leave it for 3-4 minutes to form a colloid and put the grease in suspension, and wipe over with my All-purpose cloth (or my Tough Guy cloth first if things are still quite dire and food is burnt onto the stovetop).
Mould in the bathroom
EnviroMist is amazing for mould. We have lived in a couple of mouldy houses, so I know what I'm talking about... It contains oil of cloves, which is antifungal. Please, don't use bleach based products on mould. They will only bleach it, not kill it. The only two things that will kill mould reliably are oil of cloves or an 80% vinegar solution. I will write another post on dealing with mould soon! It's coming up to winter...
Spray the EnviroMist on, leave it for a couple of minutes, and wipe away with an All-Purpose cloth. Then you can reapply a fine spray of EnviroMist and leave it to air dry.
Disinfecting toilets
I grab whichever spray is closer to clean the toilet - Super Strength (at full or half concentration), or EnviroMist. Both work well! We also keep a 250mL bottle of EnviroMist in the bathroom to combat smells after particular visits. It works brilliantly, and removes odours straight away.
Cleaning benchtops and cupboards
I always keep the bottle of Spray and Wipe in the kitchen under the sink. It is effective for cleaning up spills, getting splatters of pumpkin soup off the walls, cleaning carrot-induced child handprints off the white fridge, and more! I also use it to clean the stainless steel appliances with my Stainless Steel Cloth.
Cleaning floors
We have a microfibre spin mop that I love (it used to be sold by Nature Direct, but not any more, sadly), and between that and just 5mL of Super Strength in the 5L bucket, it makes cleaning floors a breeze. We used to live with a very dark wooden floor, and it looked super shiny after a mop with Super Strength. I carry around a spray bottle of Super Strength, and I go ahead one room, spray all the spots that look harder to clean, and leave them to form a colloid while I mop the other room. When we lived in another house with some matte white tiles that marked very easily (and two young kids!), it was the easiest way to deal with scrape marks and smudges.
Sinks and mirrors
EnviroMist or Super Strength can be used to clean sinks. They make the metal fixtures gleam, especially when used with the All Purpose cloth. I find that EnviroMist works especially well for mirrors. Use the Glass Polishing Cloth on mirrors, windows and shower screens to get them super sparkly!
Air quality problems - odours, allergens, mould spores, VOCs and more
The Pure Air Revitaliser, used together with the EnviroAir Concentrate or EnviroAir Hypoallergenic Concentrate, eliminates odours, reduces airborne allergens (including mould spores), bacteria and pollutants indoors. It's great for stuffy rooms and caravans. When we had to live in a mouldy house while looking for another place to live, I had three Revitaliser machines going in different rooms, full time. The difference they made was stark. Without them, I needed large doses of medication to control my asthma, but once they were running, the improvement in air quality meant I could reduce the frequency of my medication. We still got out of there post-haste though!
Nature Direct products are affordable, sustainable, people-friendly and effective. If you need help deciding which products would be the best fit for your home, please don't hesitate to get in touch!