Here at Tree Hugging Family, I mainly advocate making your own homemade green cleaners. Not only is it easy to make simple green cleaners, but very cost effective. That said, there will always be folks who want to buy, not make cleaners, so I figured we should take a look at which store bought cleaners are actually green.

The number one rule for choosing a green store bought cleaner is – read your labels. A pretty waterfall or little green leaf means nothing. Ignore fancy ‘green’ packaging and read your labels.

Terms you want to see on a cleaning bottle include:

• Ammonia free
• Chlorine free
• Plant based
• Biodegradable
• Certified organic
• Solvent free
• Phosphate free
• Chemical free
• Fragrance free
• Dye and artificial color free

Of course, one cleaner may note that it’s got certified organic ingredients or that it’s fragrance free, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. You need to read the whole label, not simply go by the first thing you see.

Terms you DO NOT want to see on a cleaning bottle include:

• “Poison” or “Danger.” Federal law mandates that these terms indicate the highest possible level of hazard.
• “Caution” or “Warning,” both mean a product carries a moderate hazard.
• “Wear gloves” – “Only use in a well ventilated area” and other likewise terms are big baddies. I’m sorry, but if you need to wear gloves or a face mask in order to handle a product, right there it’s a bad idea.

Next check for full ingredient disclosure: If a product says something like, “Natural ingredients” or has a super scanty ingredient list, I’d be leery. They could do better. Some products may be just fine, and list their healthy ingredients at their website, but they should include them on the package.

Lastly check the packaging:

• Is it excessive?
• Is it recyclable?
• Is it refillable? Some co-ops do offer refillable cleaning products.

Is it worth it?

All in all, this is a lot of work just to find a green cleaner. You could just make most of your own. If you need help making homemade green cleaners (or help choosing a green conventional cleaner) read the following:

Basic green cleaning

• 25 Safe, Non-toxic, Homemade Cleaning Supplies
• Hot Water for Cleaning – Yeah It Works
• Breathe In Some Green Air
• Homemade Organic Liquid Handsoap
• Are Sponges A Great Green Choice?

Nice scents

• Homemade Spicy Apple Air Freshener
• Natural Air Fresheners
• Pennyroyal, Cinnamon, & Lavender Air Freshener

Laundry

• Solar Stain Fighting
• Green Product Review: Biokleen All Temperature Laundry Liquid

Dishes

• Green Product Review: Biokleen Automatic Dish Powder
• Green Product Review: Seventh Generation Automatic Dishwasher Gel
• Seventh Generation Dishwasher Powder Review

Which cleaners do you buy vs. make?

[image via stock.xchng]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Today we have a special DIY homemade eco chic soap guest post from Anne-Marie, founder of Bramble Berry Inc.…

More and more families are growing increasingly concerned about their ecological footprint. In addition to taking less trips, recycling and planting more trees, there is an easy thing you can to help save the environment, improve your family’s health and save money in the process. Making your own soap is a great way to control the ingredients that go into your bath tub, onto your child and down your drain. And, bonus! It’s a fraction of the cost of store bought soap.

Eco Chic soap is the next big thing in personal care. What is Eco Chic soap? This category of personal care is all about creating yourself, controlling the ingredients and reusing common household goods. Rather than throwing away single use plastic containers, give them a new lease on life and use them as soap molds.

Making soap is an ideal creative outlet for the entire family. When you make your own soap, you choose the ingredients so you can use all natural colorants (like cocoa powder or charcoal) to color your soap and all natural essential oils to fragrance it, creating a soap bar that is naturally derived and cleans effectively.

Here’s an easy recipe to follow (hint: it’s perfect to make with children ages 4 and up with parental supervision):

You’ll need:

• Herbs, oatmeal, coffee, spirulina, clay, or food-grade charcoal
• 1 pound (16 ounces)Bramble Berry melt and pour soap, organic base
• 1 ounce essential oil (we used lavender, orange and eucalyptus)
• “Soap mold” (a clean, used plastic food dish, like an empty yogurt
• container)
• Rubbing Alcohol

How to make your soap:

1. Prep your herbs and make sure they are the right size for exfoliating gently. Sharp herbs may be too abrasive on the skin. I love using charcoal. It helps to remove toxins and impurities, similar to clay. Plus, it gives the soap a nice black hue.

2. Cut the organic melt and pour blocks into 1 x 1″ cubes.

3. Melt the soap in 30-second increments until the soap is fully melted.

4. Add .25 ounces to .50 ounces of essential oil. Remember, if you use a yellow or orange colored fragrance, your soap base will look less clear and look more yellow/orange.

5. Mix in your herbs or additives. Stir until the herbs seem mostly suspended.

6. Pour your scented and herb’ed soap into the make-shift mold
7. Tip: Don’t fill your make-shift soap mold all the way up. It helps for easy release to fill 85% of the way to the top and not the entire way.
8. Do one finishing touch of rubbing alcohol to finish off your soap and give it a nice smooth surface

Last steps: Wait for the soap to harden, get the soap out, wrap with saran wrap, label and enjoy the compliments you get on your innovative way to help save the earth, improve your household’s carbon footprint and help save the family budget this holiday season.

For more information on how to make your own soap, head to www.soapqueen.com and to buy supplies, including essential oils and the organic soap base, go to www.brambleberry.com

Some of the lovely soaps you can learn to make:

Coffee soap

Layer soap

Spirulina soap

A word from Jennifer:

First off, thanks so much to Anne-Marie for the excellent post. This is a fun holiday gift idea for sure, especially because everyone loves a good eco soap. Secondly, I visited the Bramble Berry site, and it’s amazing – well worth a visit (a long one). Not only do they carry everything you need to make delicious eco-friendly soaps, but they offer loads of tips and recipe ideas as well. This is not just a shop site, but an excellent resource if eco chic soap is your thing (of course it is!).

If you need a merry holiday reason to visit – check out this adorable Christmas tree centerpiece made of soap!

Learn about how to make this and many other beautiful soap creations at Bramble Berry.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Green gifts can cost a little more; but not if you make them yourself. I’m going to give you some ideas for homemade eco gifts that won’t cost too much to make and that people will actually adore. Some are from Tree Hugging Family’s past, and others are new.

If I see any more over the next couple of weeks, I’ll post those too.

Great little homemade green gifts for party hosts:

Pennyroyal, Cinnamon, & Lavender Air Freshener

Flower & Spice Table Toppers via Family Corner

Organic homemade beauty gifts:

Following are some of the organic beauty recipes I’ve posted here over time. These make great low-cost homemade eco gifts. If you’re going to give one of these as a gift, make sure you spice it up. Put the product in a nice vintage looking jar or bottle and be sure to label it. You can make a wonderful custom label on your computer, or for say grandma, have your kids make the label with crayons and markers.

Lemon Bath Cookies

Organic Facial & Body Cream

Organic Cleansing Creams

Homemade Sugar Body Scrub

Homemade eco crafty gifts:

Solar Art Project – if you can find some sunshine, a solar print makes a great gift when matted. Image via Sunprint Gallery.

Make some homemade paper, then bind it into a journal with a beautiful cover. To learn how to make a homemade journal watch one of the following videos – Junk Journal (a pop and his daughter make a journal out of recycled trash!) or Basic DIY Book Binding Demonstration.

Make everyone a homemade reusable shopping bag out of old clothes or fabric you already have on hand.

Yummy green homemade gifts:

Cookie and Brownie Mix In a Jar – replace conventional items with organic.

Cornmeal Rosemary Biscotti or Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti

Get Out Those Canning Jars – by the timely Linette who must have known I was going to post about this.

Great homemade eco stocking stuffers: 

Homemade Organic Paint Soap for Kids

Homemade Recycled Stickers

[image via here]

Recycled and molded crayons: Grab those broken crayons and learn how to mold them into cool shapes (use holiday molds).

Bonus homemade joke gift for bad co-workers, mother-in-laws, or your lame ex: Homemade Anti-Tree Hugging Beauty: Bacon Soap!

Stay tuned because soon we’ll also be looking at some more homemade gifts (hopefully) plus eco-friendly wrapping ideas. In the meantime, Eco Street had a great post last year -7 groovy handmade recycled gifts to make and give, that has plenty of cool ideas, even for pets.

November current events at Tree Hugging Family – themes, reviews, news, and more…

[image via stock.xchng]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

I’m a little obsessed with these cool lemon bath cookies I read about at Pretty By Nature. The recipe sounds awesome. Since I did see it there, I’m sending you over to Pretty by Nature to see the recipe link, but you won’t be disappointed with a couple of clicks. It sounds like a great morning pick-me-up sort of soap. Easy to adjust as organic too.

You also may be interested in hugging yourself a lemon tree.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in May 2008

[photo via stock.xchng]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

“I was wondering if you (or any readers) knew of a cheap way to make your own liquid soap from all those crazy “soap slivers” that slime around the kitchen, bathrooms, showers and tubs?

There has to be a way to liquify them, right? Or am I in la-la land?”

Angelique is not in la-la land. I answered her question in the comments, but one I answered it with a short version (leaving out specific timing), and two, since maybe you missed that post, I figured I’d post about this topic.

You can make liquid soap from all those left-over slivers, or buy a natural, (detergent free) organic bar of soap. Depending on how much liquid soap you need buy a 3-4 oz bar, or save up enough slivers to equal the same.

You also need distilled water. You can buy some or better yet, simply leave a gallon on water sitting open on your counter for a couple of days.

Chop the soap up super small or grate. Boil the water (start with 3-4 cups) and once hot, add the soap. Mix, let it sit on a low boil, and if needed add more soap and or water, let low boil, mix. Once it appears to be the right thickness, do a massive final mix, it needs to be completely blended or little soap hardened pieces will show up, which of course will clog your pump. After the final mix, run a test. Your test is to let it sit out overnight. If you come back and it’s too thick, heat and add more water.

Getting the thickness right is the hard part. It depends on the soap. If you add 3 oz of soap or so, start with 3-4 cups H2o and go from there. It will turn out different depending your soap, so this is a project you need to watch, at least the first time you do it. You can add a few drops of organic essential oils too.

Variations:

Scrubby shower soap: You can make this as a liquid shower soap with scrubby bits in it – such as ground almonds or oatmeal. However, you can’t put this in a pump, it’ll clog. You need to put it in a bottle.

Herbal: Before adding the soap, boil organic herbs in the distilled water. Remove and strain before adding soap.

Other additions: Other items you can play with as additions include; a few tablespoons of Aloe Vera, honey, coconut or olive oil, vanilla or cinnamon (boil whole sticks), flower essences, and more – really whatever you like. This is an almost free project, so mess-ups won’t kill you.

You can also use this to clean your house, not just your body.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in May 2008

Post from: Tree Hugging Family