Christmas is fast approaching and we will be having lots of family and friends visiting to drop off Christmas gifts, hang out with a cup of tea (or something stronger) for the long-awaited catch ups, or even stay over for a few days to share the annual Christmas dinner together.
Here, Von Sy founder of Nimble, the UK’s first and only range of child-friendly household cleaning products shares Child-Friendly Eco Cleaning Tips for Christmas.
Whatever it is that you’ll be doing, it’s guaranteed that it will be chaotic and messy, especially when there are young children involved. You will definitely end up with a lot of things to clean up. So, here are our five top tips to help you clean up with no sweat at all:
Tip #1 – Soak, soak, soak.
If you’re making roast turkey or baking your favourite Christmas cakes and the juices and fats go into the baking tray, you know that it will be a nightmare to get rid of the dried-on residues and you’ll need a lot of elbow grease to get rid of them. Your dishwasher will be running at capacity and you’ll have piles of dishes, pots and pans that will be lying around your kitchen.
While you’re waiting to load your dishwasher, soak your cookware in warm soapy water and hum some Christmas carols while you tidy up the kitchen.
How does soaking actually help? Water makes sure that the fat and grease will not dry up and harden, while the surfactants (a.k.a. cleaning ingredients) coming from the soap or detergent loosen them and make sure they don’t settle – which makes for easier washing.
Soaking is an eco-friendly way of cleaning because you will need less washing-up liquid or specialist cleaning products (usually loaded with harsh chemicals) later on when you do the hard work of manually scrubbing the residues.
Soaking for at least 15 minutes will make a whole world of difference when it’s time to do the washing up – either by machine or by hand.
Tip #2 – Wipe down spills immediately.
Sadly, even Santa Claus cannot grant you the wish of a tidy home over Christmas!
If a guest – whether an adult (especially an adult!) or a child – knocks over a cup of tea or drops their food on a surface, take a deep breath first, say ‘Merry Christmas’ and then try and reach out for cloth wipes as soon as you can.
Cloth wipes are fantastic eco-friendly cleaning products for three reasons: One – you can use them multiple times unlike disposable wipes or kitchen rolls. Two – they’re very absorbent so you won’t have to use lots of them. And 3 – the best part is that you can choose an antibacterial surface cleaner to use together with the cloth wipe that is eco-friendly and made with plant-based ingredients, rather than having to use disposable wipes that are impregnated with harsh chlorine-based chemicals.
Wiping things down as soon as possible prevents the spills from drying up which makes it hard to remove later on.
Tip #3 – Power of hydrogen peroxide.
This is probably the best eco-friendly hack for red wine stains on carpets and table cloths that you’ll surely come across in any Christmas celebration.
Red wine is a type of stain that requires surfactants and bleach. The surfactants will remove the excess spill but unfortunately the colour can only be removed by bleach. A normal household bleach is made with sodium hypochlorite which is corrosive and nasty to marine life when it goes into the sewers.
A very good eco-friendly alternative that most people don’t know is good old hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) that you can get from any chemist. It sounds like a scary product, but it is in fact very eco-friendly because it simply breaks down into water and oxygen.
So, when you encounter a red wine stain, simply wipe off the excess stain with a cloth wipe, then add a bit of washing-up liquid or a kitchen spray to remove muck, then for the final touch, add a bit of hydrogen peroxide to bleach the colour.
Just make sure you test the hydrogen peroxide first in a hidden part of the fabric before going full blast because it could bleach the whole fabric.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Von Sy is founder of Nimble, the UK’s first and only range of child-friendly household cleaning products powered by plant-based ingredients. Nimble’s award-winning, patented products are available in major retailers including Boots, Ocado and Amazon and are exported abroad.
Nimble is the series winner of the BBC’s ‘The Customer is Always Right’ – winning best product, and the range is featured in the new royal baby book “Our Royal Baby”, written by Royal Commentator and HRH The Prince of Wales biographer, Robert Jobson and published by St. James’s House.
Web: www.nimblebabies.com
Twitter and Instagram: @nimblebabies
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nimblebabies
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/von-sy-5581b61/
