a personal question

Someone asked me last week which eco-friendly product I use for washing my hair.

And the answer is........

baking soda.

Yep, plain ol' BS. I keep a container of it in the shower. Useful, coz we clean the shower with it too. For cleaning surfaces, we dab a little on a damp cloth and scrub away - shower, bath, handbasin, toilet, laundry tub, kitchen bench. (Really stubborn curry stains on the bench might need a little white vinegar, but other than that, BS does the trick).
For hair washing, I wet my hair and then pour over a spoonful of BS dissolved in some warm shower water. Scrub, rinse and I'm done! Some people like to add a wash of apple cider vinegar - I experimented with this for a while (no, it doesn't smell!!!), but it left my hair really fly-away, so now I just stick to the BS. Works a treat. In fact, a month or so ago Father Bear ran his hand through my hair and said "Your hair's so smooth" - it had been a long time since he'd said that! I'd been baking-soda-ing for about three months at that point - and he didn't know;-)

But that's not all.....
when we (with alarming regularity) leave our dinner in a blackened glob on the bottom of our pots, we pour in some water, a teaspoon of BS and boil for five minutes. The black-whatever-it-is just peels off. It's true!

We tried it in the dishwasher. But the results couldn't be raved over. Within a few washes the glasses were cloudy-looking and stuff stuck to the plates. We are currently using a mixture of half BS and half *real* dishwasher powder. That seems to be working OK.

The washing machine was more successful. Clothes got clean. And didn't end up with that perfumey-stink that is left behind after using washing powder. I realise some people LIKE that smell - I don't, it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end - and my son's too. We don't even like approaching THAT aisle in the supermarket - and now we don't have to!!! Not even to buy a nice bright-coloured plastic container of super-cleaner-with-added-baking-soda! We just use the real thing!

Just in case you have an ant problem, baking soda makes a pretty good deterrent. We had armies of ants at our house, until I sprinkled BS ALL around the outside of the house. They haven't been back in four years....which actually makes me think they just moved on elsewhere....but BS can take the credit all the same!

That's still not all though. Baking soda can be used in the kitchen! My favourite would be watching it raise my sourdough bread.