Green cleaning products that work

I know some people say so-called green cleaning products don’t do as good a job as conventional ones, but I don’t agree. I’ve only used green cleaning products for years now, and I don’t think my house looks in the least dingy!

I’ve used lots of brands from the ubiquitous Ecover to funky Method and various worthy products I’ve found in wholefood shops. I’m always looking for new green cleaning ranges because I like some variety in such a repetitive, boring job.

Method discontinued their excellent Tub Scrub, which was made from milled marble and the best cream cleaner I’d ever found. Which is quite a compliment coming from someone who ran a cleaning business for 12 years.

The nice people at Method responded to my question about why I could no longer find Tub Scrub with a couple of vouchers and one of the very last bottles, which was a lovely gesture, but I did wonder what I’d use when it ran out.

So I was delighted to find Bathroom Balm on the Mangle & Wringer website (which provides tips for stain removal that helped me save an old linen shirt from the recycling bin). Bathroom Balm comes in a large tin instead of a bottle, and is so smart you could easily leave it out on show in the most swanky of bathrooms, something you can’t say about Cillit Bang!

Mangle & Wringer call their products ‘natural cleaning remedies’ as they are all biodegradable and made with food grade ingredients. The story of how founder Vanessa Willes acquired the recipe for the handmade soap that’s the basis of the remedies could have come from Catherine Cookson!

Bathroon Balm is a stiff paste with very little fragrance, made of bicarbonate of soda, calcium carbonate, coconut oil soap, palm free vegetable glycerine, and salt, all ingredients you’re more likely to find in the pantry than a chemical plant.

You need very little to do a thorough job on horrible scummy baths and basins (we have hard water in Somerset) and using so little means there’s hardly any rinsing so the job takes much less time.

Give most people a bottle of cream cleaner and they’ll squirt it all round the basin and then take ages trying to rinse all the foam and grittiness off. When I ran my cleaning business I was constantly trying to persuade the cleaners to use less (to save them effort as well as cut down on my costs!) but I don’t think anyone took much notice.

I’ve also tried the Bathroom Balm on the stainless steel kitchen sink and it comes up a treat, although Mangle & Wringer also do a tin of Kitchen Cleanser which is apparently a bit beefier than the bathroom version.

Yes, it’s more expensive than mass-produced cleaning products, but I for one prefer not to be assaulted by powerful ‘fragrances’ when I’m cleaning, and a little really does go a long way. And I’m probably very sad but I just like using cleaning products in nice packaging.

Speaking of which, if you order online from Mangle & Wringer a package will arrive very shortly afterwards, probably the next day, with the tins and bottles packed in black tissue paper. I was so keen to get into mine that I forgot to take a photo 🙁

Or they have a growing list of stockists of their green cleaning products around the country if you prefer to have a look before buying.

Oh, and in case of any doubt, I must add that I’m not being paid to tell you this, it’s simply that I love the story of Mangle & Wringer, the fact that all the products are hand made at the owner’s home, and that they work so well.