Experience true joy in cleaning by joining us on our Big Eco Spring Clean. Discover our simple natural products, equipment and techniques that you will want to use for Spring Cleaning this Spring and all through the year.
Save...
- Money
- Time
- Your Hands and Nails
- Your Local River
- Experience the Speed and Joy of Eco Cleaning
Having cleaned using only natural, biodegradable products for approaching 20 years, we skip the gimmicks and fads and start you off with our specially selected durable eco equipment. As they say,
‘’A worker is only as good as their tools.’’
We share our pro techniques. You won’t find these elsewhere, but as soon as you try them, you might wonder, ‘Why didn’t I know about this before?’
Our cleaning products are all multipurpose and can cover an astonishing range of cleaning tasks. However, sometimes when certain products are combined following our eco recipes, they take you to the next level and can even make what might seem an impossible task, effortless.
Join us and we can take the ‘overwhelm’ out of Spring Cleaning and even help you to manage your cleaning schedule better through the year. Sign up for our e-newsletter on our home page to get these in your inbox. Receive regular inspiration and information, occasional discounts, engaging eco projects, citizen science survey links and more.
See our Eco Cleaning Department online and make your selection now or read on for our tips and information about our Basic Eco Cleaning Kit with 4 green cleaning products and our Spring Clean Eco Kit with 10 products - the eco clean everything kit!
Products and Equipment
This Spring, do all your cleaning with durable equipment with nature friendly products in our Eco Cleaning Kit with 4 essential products or be bold with Spring Clean Eco Kit with 10 products.
The Eco Cleaning Kit with 4 products
Let’s start you with our 4 key products, in our basic Eco Cleaning Kit, available in a single click. First, I'd like to tell you how important they are as alternatives to conventional cleaning products. The 4 items in this kit can help you to save money, time, to keep your skin and nails in better condition. Using these products helps to care better for the environment and they make your homes healthier places to be.
- The Scrubby
- Walnut Shell Powder
- Hemp Oil Soap
- Soapnuts
The Scrubby Cleaning Pad
The ultimate multi-surface, non-scratch, washable cleaning pad. Made from cotton and stiffened with tree resin, the Scrubby is the go-to cleaning cloth for a massive range of tasks. With their intense colours and abstract designs, just seeing a scrubby makes you want to pick it up and start cleaning straight away. You might then have trouble putting it down – seeing how effective it is, you will want to try it on all sorts of tasks. We have two sizes, normal and large.
Each scrubby is different and when you order we encourage you to buy them in sets of 3 or 5. That way you can designate a room or group of tasks for each scrubby. So at home, one scrubby lives in the kitchen, one in the bathroom and one is kept for general cleaning. You might prefer to have once at each sink and basin in your home. We know from our customers, that scrubbies make very popular and well received gifts too. Always be sure to keep a spare scrubby as a spontaneous gift.
If you are on a mission to go green, the Scrubbies are a key eco switch away from foam scouring pads and we are sure that there will be no turning back.
Did you know that foam sponge scourers take up to 400 years to break down. They never biodegrade on only disintergrate into millions of polluting plastic microfibres. Given that the manufacturer suggests replacing this every week, the potential for pollution just from a single household is immense.
On the other hand, the Scrubby lasts so much longer, months longer and it is so much more effective. When the scrubby does begin to get a little threadbare, we give it new tasks in the garden. Eventually, the scrubby can be chopped up with scissors and buried in the soil and the soil microbes will help it return to completely to nature.
Walnut Shell Powder – a natural alternative to microplastics
Until 2017, manufacturers were adding plastic microbeads into personal care products. The microbeads acted as an abrasive and bulking agent but of course, once they are washed away, layers of plastic particles settle in the rivers and then into the sea. While a ban in personal care products was announced in 2017 microplastics were removed from some personal care products, they are still present in make up, toothpaste sun cream and washing up liquid!
A micro plastic is any piece of plastic less than 5mm in size and nanoplastics are much smaller, some as small of 100 microns. A recent survey in the River Mersey revealed that there were around 84,000 pieces of microplastics in a square meter of water (Microplastics in freshwater and soils, n.d.). Another study has found that microplastics are found in human hearts and that their presence increases the chances of hearth issue (microplastics-found-in-human-hearts, n.d.)s. So the ‘little’ plastic problem is huge.
These microplastics harbour bacteria and toxins such as pesticides in the water and pharmaceuticals in the water. Tiny creatures in the rivers accidentally ingest microplastics and can die when their digestive system becomes blocked or the creature is poisoned. If these plastic filled creatures are eaten, the toxins accumulate all the way up the food chain. It is in all seafood, many other foods and all water, so they increasingly get into us too. The water companies do not filter out microplastics and so if we use them in our lives, they will pollute the planet for the foreseeable future.
We don't need plastic microplastic beads in our products. There is and always has been a nature-friendly alternative - Walnut shell powder, which is made by grinding down walnut shells, a waste product from the walnut food industry. We add walnut shell powder at point of use when extra scouring power is required. While the walnut shell is abrasive, each particle is rounded, so it does not scratch.
Two Types of Natural Soap
Natural soap or detergent is either made with a oil/fat base, giving a oil based soap or detergents are produced directly from plants giving a water soluble soap. These two types of soap have different properties and uses.
- Oil Based Soaps
Again this breaks down into two types: hard bars of soap which are a mixture of animal fats or plant oil and either sodium hydroxide to give solid bars of soap or potassium hydroxide to give ‘soft soap.’
We make solid bars of Pine Tar Soap using British hemp oil and sodium hydroxide - this tends to be used for washing the hands, face and body.
We also make our multipurpose Hemp Oil Soap. It is a ‘soft’ soap left in its concentrated gel-like form. It has been tested as having fast acting antimicrobial properties and because it is already in a gel form, it can be used neat, or easily diluted say in a bucket of hot water for washing floors. Our hemp oil soap has many uses, from shaving, hygienic hand washing, exfoliating the skin and cleaning. This soap has intensive cleaning power but at the same time, it is kind to the skin so it can be used without rubber gloves.
Use our hemp oil soap for cleaning surfaces that are germy, greasy, sticky, contain dried on dirt, burn food, etc.
- Water Based Soaps
Water based soaps are made directly from certain plants which contain high levels of saponins (natural plant soap). It seems that many plants and trees produce saponins as part of their immune system and possibly to deter attack by insects and microbes. To us, these saponins are a safe natural detergent. Just soak the saponin rich plant matter and use the soapy liquid. We tend to use Organic Soapnuts for yielding our water soluble detergent.
Use soapnuts for tasks such washing up, cleaning windows, any shiny surfaces, walls, floors etc. We also use them instead of laundry powders and liquids in our washing machine of for hand washing, plus we use them in our dish washer.
Eco Cleaning Kit containing 4 key products
- A Scrubby
- Hemp oil soap
- Soapnuts
- Walnut Shell Powder
You can tackle 80-90% of your Spring cleaning tasks with our Eco Clean Kit with 4 products.
Spring Clean Eco Kit with 10 products
However to fly through ALL of your Spring cleaning tasks, let us look at other equipment and products which you will find essential if you are to complete all of your Spring cleaning tasks in eco style.
We have assembled the ultimate Spring Clean Eco Kit with 10 products, with specialist eco cloths, brushes and our natural detergents. It means that you can clean absolutely everything the eco way and it is a much bigger step into the eco life.
The 10 items in the Spring Clean Eco Kit
- A large Scrubby - a cotton scrubbing pad for cleaning cloudy/hazy windows, the bath and the shower screen and all manner of washable surfaces.
- A normal sized Scrubby - will this take pride of place in your kitchen for washing up, the hobs, cooker hood and roasting pans?
- A Lint Free Cotton Cleaning Cloth - for polishing, damp dusting, washing and wiping.
- A thick knitted Cotton Dishcloth - for washing dishes and wiping surfaces nearly dry. We have them made for us in dark colours so that they carry on looking lovely.
- A steel wound bristle and sheep's wool Bottle Cleaning Brush to fit thermos, milk and baby bottles. I have also used it for cleaning a glass chandelier and behind my radiators.
- A steel wound Drain Cleaning Brush also known as a 'hair catcher' - to keep waste water flowing out of your sink, shower and bath outlets and to clean the refrigerator drain.
PLUS - 250g organic Soapnuts - for making water based detergent, washing up liquid, for laundry and for dishwashers.
- 250g Citric Acid - for descaling kettles and tackling limescale on taps and toilets.
- 75g Hemp Oil Soap - for sticky, greasy, germy tasks.
- 50g Walnut Shell Powder - to add extra abrasive qualities for cleaning neglected windows and the shower screen.
With these 10 products you should be able to achieve 99.9% of all your Spring cleaning - all in the most planet friendly way.
Special Cleaning Techniques
Be brave - clean without rubber gloves
There is hardly anything so off putting as donning wet rubber gloves. Once on, expect to be a fumble fingers, and don't be surprised if skin rashes appear. Washing up gloves do not prevent chemicals leaching into your skin.
But don't worry, with our natural products, your skin and nails are safe. Be brave and try our products with naked skin. It makes cleaning more spontaneous and you are less likely to drop things. Now I use these carefully selected products without rubber gloves, I no longer suffer from dermatitis and I no longer have brittle nails.
Spraying and wiping isn't cleaning
We see it so often in pubs, cafes and restaurants - the waiting staff clears a table, sprays it with cleaner and wipes it with a damp cloth. All it all done with the best of intentions, but the table, bar or counter will be left sticky.
The original and best way of cleaning is to apply detergent with a cloth, clean the area, rinse the cloth and then rinse the surface. When the surface dries it will feel clean and smooth.
Use buckets not the sink
When you clean using the wash, rinse and wipe method (as opposed to the spray and wipe method), you will need to rinse the cleaning cloths quite often to keep them clean. Yes, you can keep going back to the sink and doing this, but all that dust and fluff will block your sink, plus you will have a sink to clean at the end.
It is a lot easier if you have a pair of buckets. I often use our smaller White Enamel 2L bucket to hold my detergent and with my 5L enamel bucket to hold the rinse water. It saves a lot of trotting around with dripping cloths and all that extra sink mess. Once I am finished cleaning, I can simple tip the bucket of used water on the garden.
Start by clearing your drains
You will need a well flowing sink, shower and bath to do your Spring cleaning.
My drain brush, also known as a ‘hair catcher’, has had both the pleasure of cleaning my sink, shower and bath outlets and sprucing up my sink overflow outlets. It was also most helpful when cleaning out my washing machine overflow and I was surprised by what the brush extracted. It is cleaned straight after use with a Scrubby and our antimicrobial Hemp Oil Soap. That way, it can help to clean my fridge drain hole too. Keep this brush really clean and leave it ready on standby for anytime you should need it.
The two wipe rule!
Cleaning is never hard work or frustrating because I have a ‘Two Wipe Rule.’ If dirt doesn’t shift within two wipes – out comes the scrubby!
Using our cleaning cloths in combination
Often when I am cleaning at home, I am holding with a scrubby and a lint free cloth in the same hand. The scrubby does its scrubbing and behind it the cloth catches any drips. The cloth is there too to wipe away traces of detergent. I can easily switch between the two without any downtime!
The principles of using natural soaps
You get the best out of natural soaps by following these principles.
- Use hot water. Hot water makes any soap work more efficiently.
- Allow time to do the work - instead of rubbing and scrubbing which can damage surfaces, just give the soap a few minutes to do its work. Cleaning will be much easier and your surfaces will look nicer for longer.
Cascade cleaning
My technique of cascade cleaning, gives you the most cleaning ability from your cloth and helps with the hygiene of cleaning.
So the principles are to start with the dry cloth using it for tasks such as polishing. Then using the cloth damp, for wiping surfaces without causing drips. Also working from light levels of dust and dirt, towards heavier duty tasks.
So in my downstairs washroom, I might use the lint free cloth and a few drops of soapnut liquid in this order.
- Cleaning and polishing the mirror and door handles with the cloth dampened in soapnut liquid:
- Wiping splashes off walls, tiles and the door, with a slightly wetter cloth with more soapnut liquid.
- Cleaning horizontal surfaces.
- Cleaning the sink and pedestal if you are using a bucket for holding your detergent and rinse water. Use the Scrubby too! If not clean the toilet and floor first. Then clean the sink thoroughly with plenty of detergent on the cloth.
Cleaning the toilet, lid, seat, pedestal and bowl and floor. The lint free cloth, despite regular rinsing does need a wash now!
Hot citric acid
After descaling your kettle, re-use that hot citric acid, don't just tip it away! I pour the hot citric acid over my bathroom taps and then scrub them them with a scrubby. The limescale comes off straight away.
Sort and clear as you clean
Do take this opportunity to get rid of items you will no longer use and create piles for recycling, charity and for selling.
Leave space when rearranging cupboards
Clearing out cupboards? Once everything goes back in, try to leave a little space so that if you need to add anything else in there later on, there will be room.
Do it together
Have a Eco Spring Clean Party. Or at least invite a friend over to help. Return the favour too. It can really help with moving heavy objects such as getting behind the fridge to dust the vents and tubes or turning a mattress (actually many of the newer bed mattresses don't require turning) . Or removing curtains, or deciding what to keep etc.
Take Rests
Finally Spring cleaning isn't a marathon. It can be hard work, so do take breaks and don't overdo the lifting and moving on your own. If you don't get through it all in the Spring, well, there is the rest of the year and we'll still be here with our eco supplies.
Finally
Be assured you can always buy items that you might run out of such as soapnuts, hemp oil soap and citric acid in larger quantities, when ever you need them from our cleaning department. You don't have to buy the whole kit. All the items are available individually.
To support your eco ambitions, we have built a DISCOUNT into both the 4 product Eco Cleaning Kit, priced from £20 and with the full 10 product Spring Clean Eco Kit, set at just £60.00.
We provide Free UK mainland second class postage on orders over £35, so if you'd like to stock up on personal care essentials, dental products or an amphora, then add whatever you like to your order and we can send everything out together and the postage won't cost you a penny.
Get in touch if you have questions for specific tasks and do let us know how you find your Eco Spring Clean with our eco products!