Have you walked down the cleaning products aisle in your local supermarket lately, unsure what to buy in order to clean just your counter tops or table tops with for example?
If you have I am sure it’s because there are just so many brands and products to choose from, too many in fact. Not just too many, but too many of the same products advertised for different jobs!
A short cleaning story
I remember a time when I had just moved into a flat on my own and went shopping for some essentials, looking for a cleaning product for the kitchen and bathroom. Still a student at the time, I was on a tight budget, just looking for one simple and easy cleaning solution. I walked down the aisle and saw a number of products, each advertised for a different type of surface or for a different room in the house. One cleaning product for the kitchen, one for the bathroom, one for the toilet, one for the lounge and glass top tables and so on and so on! Even washing machine powders, it was a similar story.
I became frustrated, because I had now been suckered into the marketing hype and came to the realization that I would probably have to buy each of these products, thus spending far more than I had wanted to. So I decided to read the ingredients of all these products.
Lo and behold they were exactly the same! Let me say that again, the ingredients were exactly the same!
Marketing and cleaning products
In this way you can see for yourself just how big marketing plays in all these products and brands. It is intentional to trick us into thinking that we need all these products and ensuring we buy more and more of them. Also remember, this is even before we actually take a closer look at what is inside them and what toxic chemicals may be used in them.
So what is the solution?
Make your own toxic free cleaning solution, and you just need one, trust me. One that you can use everywhere. If you don’t feel like making your own, try get down to a zero waste shop where they have home made cleaning solutions for sale, and you can top up your bottles rather than buy new bottles every time.
In this way you save money, reduce the harmful chemicals that you get exposed to and reduce your plastic waste. Win, win, win!