Naturally Clean Home

Living on our little farm with a busy family, critters, and gardens and adhering to the motto “Life Happens,” I demand simple, easy, and inexpensive cleaning solutions. I want laundry concoctions to yank a splotch of homemade spaghetti sauce out of my son's brand-spankin’-new white band shirt, nuke the lawn mower grease out of my husband’s favorite Carhartt work jeans, and gently care for my beloved antique quilts and linens. I want it all while keeping our environment clean and saving money while really getting my items clean.


I already know many of the old-time favorite homemade recipes for cleaning house and home; e.g., white vinegar as a fabric softener and toothpaste as a jewelry polish. My mom, a survivor of the Great Depression, taught her youngest child and only daughter well.

Mom had the solution to everything, was the queen of making a nickel a quarter, and knew how to do both with flair! Many times I went to school in my wool cardigan smelling like apple cider vinegar because, according to Mom, apple cider vinegar kept moths away from wool. Apple cider vinegar also kept the boys away!

Oh, if my mom had only had a copy of Karyn Siegel-Maier’s handy-dandy book The Naturally Clean Home, she could have added some scented essential oil to that smelly cider vinegar wash. My wool sweater would have come out of the wash smelling like a rose, or lavender, or sandalwood! (Hmmm . . . now that I think of it, maybe there was a method to my mother's cider-scented wool sweater rinse . . . maybe it was her way of keeping the boys away!) Do take a quick sweep through the book Naturally Clean Home by Karyn Siegel-Maier for quick, easy, inexpensive, and, most important, effective recipes to keep your home naturally clean.

— Maryellen Mahoney, Special Sales Account Manager