As the frantic pace of summer begins to shift into an autumnal pause, we can start to look beyond work or social commitments and back into our own houses.
My own house has collected the clutter of a busy summer, and there is a build-up of leftover sundries hiding under my stairs and peaking out of the corners of almost every room.
September is a good time for a good clean and declutter of the house, and I’m guessing houses with families might get a bit of cleaning breathing space now that the kids are back in school.
My method for decluttering is to spend at least two weeks doing research on aspirational lifestyle blogs, which is the perfect way to procrastinate and put off the unseemly work of actually having to sort your house out.
As the piles of untended junk lie quietly in the corner of my office, I’ve been researching foods used as cleaning methods. I’ve found reams of online pages primed for procrastination, helping me to put off my tidying. I’ve taken note of tips such as using soft white bread to help pick up broken shards of glass (approach with caution if you do try that at home) and recommendations for cleaning coffee grinders by grinding dry rice.
And what of baking soda? Not to be confused with baking powder (which is a mixture of baking soda, powdered acid and cornstarch) baking soda is also known as bicarbonate of soda or bread soda. It’s an essential ingredient for traditional brown bread.
One of the first factories to produce baking soda were the US company Church & Dwight Co., when brothers-in-law John Dwight and Austin Church came together the baking soda they had developed in Dwight’s kitchen specifically for the use in home baking in the 1840s. They had built on the earlier work of French chemist Nicola Leblanc, who is thought to be the first to produce sodium carbonate in a lab setting in 1791, but the Ancient Egyptians were known to mine the compound’s natural form, nacholite, and use it to form a paint for their hieroglyphics.
According to Australian Science, baking soda is a "great cleaning agent because it is a milk alkali, and it can react with acids without causing any damaging reactions." It's particularly recommended for cleaning chrome, steel, glass, enamel and plastic, though it seems to be a little tougher on materials like copper. In 1986, during a massive restoration project of the Statue of Liberty to celebrate the monument's 100th birthday, its inner copper walls were cleaned and restored with a baking soda. It worked beautifully on the inside but some of the baking soda mixture leaked to the monument's exterior, leaving some mascara-like streaks on the giant lady's face.
I’ve been set the task of cleaning copper pots twice in my life, which I know must make me seem like a heroine in a Dickens novel, but there you go. The only method I’ve ever used is the powerful duo of lemon and coarse salt. This combo can be used to clean brass, as well as butcher block counter tops. It’s a non-toxic, totally natural way to get scrubbing, and it genuinely works, with remarkably and satisfyingly speedy results on copper pots.
Copper shine Tomato ketchup is also commonly listed as a method for cleaning copper pots, with the Huffington Post pointing to the natural acidity of the tomatoes helping to make the copper shine. Following the same principles, it's also known to be used for cleaning the alloys of your car.
Though as Good Housekeeping notes, ketchup doesn't remove dirt so they recommend starting with a clean car and using ketchup as a buffer to add shine to your car metal.
According to the website How To Clean Anything, one of Coca-Cola's active ingredients is phosphoric acid, which may explain its effectiveness as a short-term solution for a blocked drain.
I’ve also tried this one at home, and was perturbed by how immediately a bottle of Coca-Cola seemed to unblock a drain in a crumbling Georgian house I lived in a decade ago. Since then, I lost my appetite for this fizzy drink. It’s hard to work up a taste for something you’ve seen clean the innards of an old bathroom.
But what about the salt and red wine trick? We’ve all been at a party where someone has sploshed a bit of red wine over a pretty, light-coloured carpet or a family heirloom rug, followed by screeches “Get the salt, stat!”from salubrious party guests. The sense of urgency is on point, as the salt treatment only works on wet stains, as the salt can act as an absorbent, thus making it easier to clean up the stain.
One method of food-based cleaning that I’m thinking of giving a go is using banana peels to clean silver – if I actually had any genuine silver cutlery to clean. Apparently, when mixed with a bit of water and ground-up in a food processor, the banana peels make a paste than helps restore brilliant shine and remove unwanted stains from silver, and Apartment Therapy also recommends it for cleaning your silver jewellery.
If you're looking for some advice on how to make your own, non-toxic, totally natural cleaners, or simply just a list that will help you put off doing any actual cleaning, have a look at this Good Housekeeping list of Make-At-Home-Cleaners.
