Cheaper alternative to flash

Herbaholic

This may be old news to some people but thought I'd share it just incase. For years I bought and used flash cleaner for the bathroom and kitchen because I had the stupid notion that paying more for a product meant it was better :rolleyes: But a couple of months ago, I decided it was time to try and cut the shopping bill (in my pre MSE days) so I bought Wilko's lemon multi surface cleaner to save money, I discovered it cleaned just as well as flash but I wasn't happy with the smell!

So to the wilkos cleaner I added a few drops of pine, eucalyptus and orange essential oils; lemongrass, lime and orange works well to (in the lemony one), it smells wonderful and you can change the oil combinations each time you buy a bottle. The essential oils also add some antibacterial and antiseptic properties depending on which ones you use. The fresh clean smell lasts a lot longer as well! Last week I bought the orange scented wilkos multi purpose cleaner and added some cinnamon and clove oil to it and have a perfect cleaner for the winter and festive season, it smells wonderful! I use lots of essential oils in the home, luckily I get them cheap for my job, but you only need a few drops so it isn't that expensive.

Another thing I do is drop a few drops of oil on to a cotton wool ball and drop it in the dyson, that helps to make the room smell lovely and you can have a different fragrance every time you empty the dyson out, my current favourite is lemongrass and lavender, but in the winter I swap that for a mix of bay, cinnamon and orange :grinheart

northern_star

I love this idea but am a little concerned about adding things to chemical preparations (cleaners, etc) in case of a 'reaction'. I'm no scientist but don't some mixes produce toxic fumes?
I use essential oils regularly and love the smell and sense of well-being they can induce, however, I would personally be cautious about adding them to a bottle of anything chemical, prefering to wipe over the area with a cloth wrung out from a EO/water only mix. Perhaps a spray bottle of EO & water could be used after the 'cleaning' to leave the lovely smell and antiseptic properties without risking the 'mix'?

HTH

tawnyowls

Stardrops with a few drops of Zoflora (and theyr'e safe to mix together) usually does the job beautifully.

The essential oils in the vacuum works really well, though - I use that all the time too. The oils can often be picked up quite cheap in discount shops; I wouldn't be entirely happy about using those on my skin, just because you can't be sure of the purity, but for cleaning, they're great.