Episode 25: The Best Natural Cleaning Solutions

This episode Allison Cochran talks about the best natural cleaning solutions. She'll walk you through how you can clean your house without chemicals, what the best natural cleaning solutions are, and how you can use essential oils to keep your home clean.

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Transcript

Okay. Hi, I'm Alison Cochran, I'm so excited to be with you. We're gonna talk today natural cleaning solutions. So, whether you like cleaning or not, it's really important that you use safe but effective methods of cleaning your home, and that's what we're gonna talk about today.

Essential oils contain natural cleansing properties that provide a powerful way to keep and get things clean. So, we're gonna talk about why cleaning with essential oils is important to me, what makes which essential oil a good choice for cleaning, and my top three oils.

Toxic Load

So, I started to be aware of toxins and the toxic load of my body very early in life. I grew up at a gas station, and at that time it was all leaded gasoline and of course petrochemicals, and I was there from the age of 2 to 13.

So, there was an overloading of toxins on my body, and because of that I had a lot of struggles emotionally, mentally and physically, and it was just due to those chemical toxic overloads within my body. So, I have to focus on cleaning my body, but I was also very aware of cleaning my home and my environment with effective but powerful cleaners, that weren't harmful to me. 

I wasn't big into essential oils then, but when doTERRA came along it was a total game changer for me. I couldn't believe that I could sit in a room filled with different smells and not have an adverse effect, which was something I had most commonly had. And this was the first time with all these beautiful essential oils, and my body was telling me there was something different about these oils.

Cleansing Properties of Essential Oils

So I naturally wanted to start to learn as much as I could about them, and one of the ways that I immediately wanted to incorporate them, was into green cleaning for myself, for my children, and especially for my fur babies, because I have lots of different pets in our home. So that's the beauty of it. Essential oils are safe, and they are natural to use in your home and around everyone in your family.

I like them because they are just taken from those natural beautiful plants and plant parts, they are carefully distilled and then they are preserved to keep those natural chemical components and potent properties, and that's what makes them effective for cleaning and purifying. So, you only need a small amount to provide a powerful cleanser because they are so concentrated and so potent. So, whether you are cleaning your home, your car, your garage, they are gonna be effective and efficient and just non-toxic to you.

So the other thing I love is that doTERRA essential oils are so versatile. You could pick, I could have my top three oils, but they are very versatile, they can be used for different types of cleaning, different levels of cleaning, sometimes you have just some surface cleaning to do and sometimes it's a deep cleaning that's needed. So you can to those essential oils, and you don't need that cupboard full of products that one cleaner cleans one thing. So if you have an oven cleaner, and then you have a mirror cleaner. That's not the case with these oils, that's the beauty of it, you get this versatility that they can be used for different jobs throughout your home.

Natural Cleaners

There's a lot of great things, natural cleaners but you can couple your essential oils with. Like baking soda, Castile soap, vinegar. Some of those natural things we are used to, but now you can amp it up and make them far, far more effective.

Cleansing Chemical Constituents in Essential Oils

We'll talk a little bit about the chemical constituents of essential oils that I have learned that are important for when you're choosing which essential oil that you want to use. If you're looking at the chemical constituents that make them up and you want essential oils that are specifically talked about for surface cleaning because we can have oils that are great for us internally and in cleaning our body, but they are not effective for surface cleaning, and then you can have surface cleaning oils that aren't as effective within our body. So we are looking for oils that are described as great surface cleaners.

And some of those, in the chemical constituent world are the phenols that are effective, and they are good for surface cleaning. They're oils like Clove, Oregano, Thyme.

And then you have the aldehydes, so essential oils which are rich in aldehydes are really great for cleaning purposes as well too, that's like Cinnamon, Cassia, Melissa, Cilantro.

And then you have the monoterpenes, and they've got cleansing properties as well. And they are like your Lemon, your Green Mandarin, your Bergamot, Wild Orange, Tea Tree.

So, you have a good selection of these oils, but when you look them up or you are looking for information about them you are looking for surface cleaner, and that's how you can choose that.

How Much Essential Oil to Use in a Cleaner

So, like I said before you only need a small amount of essential oil. My rule of thumb to simplify it one ounce of carrier, whether it's water or vinegar and water, I used two to four drops. So if you're doing light cleanings and just general spritzers then it's around two drops. If you want to take it further then it's four drops sometimes five, so depending on what your cleaning is gonna dictate how much essential oil you want in there. But just keep in mind you don't need a lot, you can always add a bit more.

Cleaning with Green Mandarin Essential Oil

So, my top three oils. I have told my new favorite best friend, which is green mandarin, this one is beautiful. It comes from Brazil, and what happened was that the farmers of the red mandarin fruit would take the green mandarins off, they take about 60 to 70% of them off the tree, so that the fruit that was left there would ripen and be a great harvest. So, before they would usually throw that green mandarin away, or let it decompose on the ground kind of thing and recycle back in.

But now they are able to sell the green mandarins and they've got a beautiful unique oil. But what's happened is they are able to use the green mandarin income to pay for their farming, and then when they are ready to harvest the red mandarin it's fantastic, because they can actually have a profit or more money to support their family. I think it's amazing.

It's got an aspect of a citrusy woodsy aroma, so it's very uplifting for us, but when it comes to cleaning it's got a higher concentration of what's called gamma terpene, and that means it's got such beneficial properties, somewhat like the tea tree or melaleuca plant, so it's a better surface cleaner.

You can put about in an eight-ounce bottle you can add about 8 to 10 drops of the Green Mandarin oil, I add a little bit of Himalayan salt, you shake it, and it's also good to get rid of stinky odors.

So, this is a wet time of year for me at my house and I have the dogs coming in and out, so I tend to spray the front mats at the front door just to get rid of any odor. Tends to follow the shoes as well too, which is great, because sometimes we have some people with some stinky feet. So, it's just a really easy little bottle that you can keep at your front door for that purpose.

I have one up in my bathroom and I started to spray down my shower with it. I love that smell after I've done my shower, it just smells amazing to me as I'm getting ready for the rest of the day. 

It's a great oil, when I go to get ready to get cleaning I do put it in my diffuser because of its ability to uplift me and support me and energize me, so it goes into my diffuser with a drop or two of peppermint oil so I can get the cleaning going.

Purify

My second oil that I would like to talk to you about is Purify. This is a blend that doTERRA has put together. It smells so clean and fresh, it's got lemon peel, Siberian Fir, citronella grass, Lime, Tea Tree, Cilantro, it's just a really great plant.

And if you think back to the oils that we talked about, the monoterpenes, the phenols and the aldehydes, this contains a lot of those essential oils that are listed, that we've talked about, so it's got a really refreshing aroma. It eradicates unpleasant odors and really cleans the air. It's so amazing to use as a cleaner, whether in a small space like your car, I have a spritzer bottle actually in my car pocket, and I just spits down my car after the kids have been in there eating and drinking and spilling stuff. And messes, the dogs are in and out of that car, it's a great quick cleaner surface cleaner as well too.

When I'm getting into cleaning my home, one thing I love to do is the first of the month I always change my furnace filter, I put about four drops of the Purify oil onto the filter and the put that in.

It's one that I have mixed with baking soda, just about four or five drops per cup of baking soda. Mixed it up and then I put it over my mattresses once a month and my pillows, just fluff that in there and then I vacuum it up, and that helps to keep that, we are shedding skin all the time and sometimes some of us sweat more than others, so this is a really great way to take care of your mattress. 

It's one that I have in a spray bottle as well too. It's extremely beneficial for anybody that has children with football equipment or bags or hockey bags, I use it as a spritzer all over the equipment and the pads and the helmet, and it really cuts down on odor. I've noticed a big difference with having my son's football shoes at the door and spraying them with purify. We don't have that kind of order that used to develop within his shoes, and a lot of the other parents are asking me what I'm using, because my sons football equipment doesn't stink.

The other thing I love doing, I love my On Guard Laundry Detergent, but I do add Purify, about four drops into my top loading laundry machine, because I do wash a lot of athletic clothing, and I just feel that it just keeps the health and well-being and its protective to us as well too. So Purify is just something that is a very versatile product and oil for home.

doTERRA On Guard^®

The last oil I want to talk about is the On Guard. Now everybody probably knows On Guard pretty well, but it's got Wild Orange, it's got the Clove, the Cinnamon, Eucalyptus, Rosemary. It's a beautiful unique warming aroma, it makes me think of Christmas when I smell it or baking sometimes too.

It's not only supportive to us and our immune system and protective to us that way, but it's amazing to use as a cleaner. It's probably got the most research done on it, there are some good pub med articles on it that you can go and look up. It's one that you can definitely diffuse, but it's an amazing surface cleaner.

So, whenever I'm in the kitchen I have my On Guard spritzer. After I've cut raw meat especially, I spray my On Guard, I use it in my bathroom, I use it in every room in my house as an all-purpose cleaner. So it's very simple to make, you can just again use your bottle, per oz of water I put a couple of drops of On Guard, and usually maybe one drop of the, of the Purify, because I just love those two together and it becomes a great surface cleaner.

Every aspect of my bathroom gets cleaned with it including my toilet. Unless I want to do a little bit deeper of a cleanse, and when I want to do that, I grab the baking soda and vinegar with the On Guard oil, and went it's bubbling in your toilet you can just scrub it out. It's great.

If you're looking for some great home-made recipes, there is a fantastic e-book for cleaning your home by doTERRA, and you can download that for free and it's got some fantastic recipes.

On Guard is one that I've used in my garbage cans, I squirt them as well too, you can make On Guard pucks.

doTERRA On Guard^® Cleaner Concentrate

I do probably use the On Guard Concentrate Cleaner primarily now, just because life is busy, so this I can make about 12 bottles of cleaner with this, which I think is amazing. And I can put it into the spray bottles, I have one in every bathroom, and the kids can spray their own toilets and sinks and showers and that sort of thing.

But I make it into a soft scrub, I mixed it with aluminum free baking soda, the soft one, and just add this to it to get it to the consistency that you like. It's great for cleaning the top of your stoves, sinks, a deeper cleaner for your bathtub. It's a soft scrub, so wherever you want soft scrub it's here, just with a little bit of baking soda, and you don't need very much to get the job done.

So this I would have to say is probably my absolute favorite to use, and it's good, especially if you've got a little bit harder to clean aspect that you're working on, this is the one, and it's easy to travel with.

Natural Cleaning with Essential Oils eBook

So check out the doTERRA e-book for natural cleaning with essential oils. It's fantastic, it can give you lots of home-made ideas.

If you're like me and don't have a lot of time, this [On Guard Cleaner Concentrate] coupled with a few of your oils can make your best friend.

Thanks for joining me.