Clean and Green: The Complete Guide to Non-Toxic and Environmentally Safe Housekeeping
by: Annie Berthold-Bond
Topics include:
Library Journal, July, 1990
Better than Heloise's Hints for A Healthy Planet....
Garbage Magazine, March/April 1991
The result of her years of experimentation is not only an encyclopedia for environmental cleanliness, but also a laundry list of solutions of solutions for everyday puzzlers.
Home, March 1991
In a remarkably easy-to-use format, Berthold-Bond tells how to clean effectively using simple, natural ingredients such a baking soda, Borax, lemon juice, vegetable oil and vinegar. She makes a convincing argument that cleaning with natural products can be handier, cheaper and just as effective as the alternative.
Ontario's Common Ground Magazine, Spring 1993
For those concerned about the environment, and the growing population with chemical sensitivities, Annie Berthold-Bond has the solution - actually 500 of them - in her book Clean & Green. Using her thoroughly researched and personally tested formulas for easy-to-make, nontoxic and nonpolluting household cleaning aids, it is possible to eliminate the health hazards of standard commercial products.
Natural Health, March/April 1994
It is a gold mine of ideas for cleaning everything imaginable.
From the Publisher
This remarkable book has sold almost 100,000 copies - for one reason - the formulas work!
Excerpted from Clean and Green : The Complete Guide to Non-Toxic and Environmentally Safe Housekeeping by Annie Berthold-Bond and Annie Berhold Bond. Copyright 1994. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
Creamy-Like-Frosting Soft Scrubber:
1/4 cup baking soda
vegetable-oil-based liquid soap to make a paste
Place baking soda in a bowl, stir in liquid soap and mix until you have a rich, creamy texture. Scoop onto a sponge, wash surface and rinse thoroughly.
Reviews:
Good information, but way too much for a beginner:
This book is good. BUT...there are way too many recipes with no explanations for the beginning green cleaner.
I was a little lost in the vast forest of different ways to clean everything. Also, there are no detailed instructions on just how to mix together the ingredients. As Karen Noonan Logan points out in "Clean House, Clean Planet," there are times (especially when mixing baking soda and vinegar) when you must put the ingredients in a specific order for the cleanser to work.
Don't get me wrong, this *is* a very good book! Chemically sensitive people and those who already make their own cleansers will find it a valuable source. But, for the beginner, it would probably be better to get "Clean House, Clean Planet" first because it has detailed instructions, some chemistry lessons and effectiveness ratings.
After you become more familiar with how green cleaning works, this book would be an excellent addition for more recipes and ideas.
Life without bleach! Amen. Amen.
You need this book, even if-like me-you really don't clean much at all, because you spend all your time with your intense, mess-creating toddler instead. If you're pregnant or have small children at home, this is the book you've been looking for. If you employ a cleaning service, you still need this book. If, like me, you say to yourself-why do I need to make my own cleaning products when I can now buy earth-friendly toilet bowl cleaner at my local discount chain store?-you still need this book.
I love this book. What I like best about the book is Annie Berthold-Bond's aesthetic sensibility; one can tell that (prior to pesticide exposure and her new activist role) she was an artist. She writes lovingly of how using her favorite furniture polish (1/8 cup linseed oil, 1/8 cup vinegar, cup lemon juice) induces daydreams of favorite 19th century novels. Berthold-Bond's excellent little book makes me daydream of novels, too, the type where the fortunate heroine hires some worthy, stout-hearted local matron to keep house and always returns to a freshly-scrubbed kitchen and a pot of boiling hot tea. Uh-huh.
The other day I had one of those days where the toddler didn't nap and I never got a break, but somehow I managed to mix olive oil, vinegar and a drop of essential oil and polish the kitchen table (lovingly-believe it or not-with a great leopard-print rag made from an old dress), all the while talking to the toddler and her puppets. The polish felt good on my hands. That same day I did a load of laundry in castile soap and strong rosemary tea, which smelled divine. Secret indulgences of the at-home mom! The book tempts me into philosophical reveries about the sacramental possibilities in routine tasks-to a point, and then my feminist ire rises, since house-cleaning has always been one of those knotty war-of-the-sexes issues in my marriage, which we've generally solved by not cleaning at all. But if the lion's share of cleaning is mine, that's OK, because my husband's Calvinist upbringing means he'd not easily relinquish toxic petrochemicals. (Oh the irony of an inherently messy and Dionysian man who inoculates grape juice with yeast for a living but fears microbes like sin.)
Another point: I realized after reading this book that I really never knew how to clean a house. Berthold-Bond discusses procedures that have never occurred to me in ten years of marriage, like washing walls and cleaning metals or routine drain maintenance. I've never been the green "type," which I associate with dreadlocks and ugly shoes and a kill-joy lifestyle, but having a child put me in touch with certain life-giving instincts. I bought the book after seeing it in a Montessori catalogue (all those little kids polishing metal-just shy of exploitation-just kidding) and thought I'd give it a try. It's wonderful.
I checked this book out from the library and used many of the recommendations in this book. We just moved into an 1890 farmhouse that, for a few years before us, was inhabited by a macaw (that had free fly of the house for a while) and a metropolis of mice. We cleaned every wall, window, and floor in the house, and then some, using these environmentally-friendly cleaners. What a great feeling! Unfortunately, the house has REALLY hard water, and the miracle borax toilet bowl cleaner Annie recommended didn't work for us. I agree with another reviewer who said that the book is overwhelming. I tended to just use it as guidelines for making my own imprecise cleaners (almost entirely with borax, water, vinegar, baking soda, Dr. Bronners, and tea tree oil). I didn't try any of the metal cleaners (besides baking soda on the hard water stains in the sink). This book was a great introduction to some very useful products (i.e. zeolite) and explained the different properties of each. It helped me create my own "green" cleaning supply.
A must read to detox your life.
Most of us take our homes and our environment within our homes for granted, when in reality, the polutants found in most homes may be adversely affecting the health of many of us. This book offers a lot of great information on how to rid our homes of the offenders and replace them with products that are safer and as a bonus, much less expensive.
It was almost too much information and didn't get into enough directions on individual uses while offering way too many choices. However, the basics were there and getting a start with many of the cleansers is easy.
Ridding our homes of environmental toxins is extremely important and this book helped me out tremendously.
Andrew Keith, author of, Aging Is NOT An Option!