Debunking the All-Purpose Cleaner

What's your favorite all-purpose cleaner?  (insert brand name here)  Why do you like it?   Maybe you like it because it disinfects, smells "clean", adds enough liquid to absorb a crusty mess into a paper towel or it was on sale the last time you needed an all-purpose cleaner.  Or maybe you never really gave it much thought. 

These are things that I think of, being the Clean Mama.  I used to have about three different cleaners under each sink.  Kitchen sink:  aerosol spray disinfectant, bleach countertop spray, something that was abrasive, window cleaner and the beloved all-purpose spray.  Bathroom:  aerosol spray disinfectant, mold and mildew remover, something that was abrasive and the beloved all-purpose spray.  So you get the idea - I love cleaners and cleaning.  Not really, I just thought that I needed all those things to effectively clean my home. 

Let's go back to the all-purpose cleaner.  If something is all-purpose, shouldn't it be the only thing in your cabinet?  Why do we need all those other cleaners under our cabinets waiting for little hands to get a hold of.  Seriously, have you read the labels on your cleaning supplies?  Have you ever gotten a headache or lightheaded from cleaning your shower/oven/sink?  When we clean our homes we do it because it makes our homes more inhabitable, but we also do it to keep our families healthy.  But what we do to keep our families healthy is actually poisoning our families.  I'll talk more about that in another post...back to the all-purpose cleaner debunking. 

If I'm buying an all-purpose cleaner, I want it to be an all-purpose cleaner.  I want it to clean toilets, floors, countertops, stainless steel, my windows, cabinets, mirrors, grill......This brings me to one of my favorite cleaning products - Shaklee's Basic H2 Organic Super Cleaning Concentrate.  A couple fun (fun to the Clean Mama) facts: it's nontoxic, has no phosphates, 16 oz. makes 48 gallons of superpowerful cleaner, it's a no-rinse, no-residue, no-streak formula, and there are THOUSANDS of household uses.  You can mix up the concentrate into three separate formulations - window cleaner (less than one cent per 16 oz. spray bottle), all-purpose cleaner (costs 3 cents per 16 oz. spray bottle) and the degreaser (costs 33 cents per 16 oz. spray bottle).  Want to see more? 

Think about your all-purpose cleaner - is it helping or hurting your family?  It's a little cleaning product that is either helping you by cleaning your surfaces and keeping you healthier or it's a little thing that could be making you sick.  And you're paying a lot of money for it.