I was at Whole Foods a few weeks ago  (the new one in Dedham, for you local folks – LOVE it!), and there was a woman who was demonstrating a new line of locally produced eco-friendly cleaning products – Modern Mermaids. Although the All Purpose + Glass Cleaner is great (she gave me a sample – smells fresh like peppermint) – I decided to try the “Vitalizing Fruit & Veggie Wash”. I’m always happy to support a local business.

I know – there’s tons of veggie washes out there, but I have never bought one before. I have typically just used either castile soap or very hot water. But neither was really working that great for me. So I’m happy to say this has been great! It’s not cheap (the bottle is $5.29 at Whole Foods and $5.99 online), but it has lasted a long time. And I feel much better about the fruit and veggies we’re eating. Even organic produce has dirt and other stuff that it comes in contact with so this has been a great addition to our kitchen. Plus, with its big trigger spray it’s very convenient and easy to use.

So if you’re interested in supporting a small business and eating healthier, check out Modern Mermaids. They have a complete line of cleaning products, and based on my experience I’m guessing you can’t go wrong with any of them.

Awhile back, I stopped using kitchen sponges. Not only are they not very eco-friendly, but they can get so gross so fast I was just kind of icked-out by them. I tried scrub brushes (just didn’t work well) and scrub cloths – but nothing was really working well. Then I remembered that awhile back I had gotten a cotton scrub cloth at  a craft fair that someone had crocheted. It had these nubbie things on it and it worked surprisingly well. The best part was that you could just toss it in the washing machine. I decided I needed to find more of them. So I went onto Etsy (www.etsy.com) and found a few people selling them – who knew? Etsy is amazing – there are all kinds of things there!

I ended up ordering them from a woman who has a company called Zummi. They are even more like a sponge than the one I had been using – and I like it even better. You can check out the sponges – she calls them Nubbie Scrubbies – here. But also – I have copied her description below.

“It’s time to throw away your nasty, synthetic kitchen sponge that has been sitting by your sink, slowly festering molds, food debris, and other whatnots.

Here is a wonderful alternative that you can add to your Green household. Our Nubbie Scrubbie is made of two layers of 100% cotton, and has little protruding “nubbies” on both sides to help gently scrub your dishes. These little chunky guys also do great in tackling the kitchen counter and other wipe duties. The best part is that they can be machine washed after a few uses. This minimizes the build-up of germs and molds. Keep a few of these stocked in your pantry, and you will never have to buy and throw away commercial sponges again, thus lending a hand in helping to keep our landfills clear by using a sustainable product.”

The different sellers on Etsy sell these for about $3-$4 each and they last forever. I have to admit that the Zummi seller did kinda mess up my order so it didn’t ship for over a month (!). But she did apologize. So check them out – whether it’s from Zummi or any one of the other sellers. It’s another easy and cheap way to “green” your kitchen!

I know – this seems like a pretty random post but I was intrigued when a colleague recently told me that his wife makes her own spreadable butter. He said it’s healthier than butter and tastes better than the other spreads. I checked it out online and there are all kinds of posts on different sites from people who make soft butter. Most people do it for the cost savings (which is definitely a bonus) but I was more interested in the fact that people say it tastes like butter but it’s better for you. I also checked out the Land OLakes soft butter spread and saw that it’s essentially a blend of canola oil, butter and water – similar to the “recipes” I’d seen.

So the other day I made it for the first time. It’s incredibly easy, and I have to say it tastes just like butter (which I LOVE). All you need to do is mix equal parts of softened butter with canola oil in a food processor (or you could probably use a mixer as well). Other recipes say you could do 2 parts butter, 1 part canola oil and 1 part water. I haven’t tried the version with water yet, but I will try that next. But this worked really well – I just put it in a clean Earth Balance spread tub that I had saved. It’s really soft – almost liquid- when you first make it. But no worries – once you put it in the fridge it firms up. But the great thing is that it stays soft enough to spread. It does get very soft if it’s left out – but you just can pop in back in the fridge to firm it up again.

I’m thinking you could also bake with this since I know you can substitute oil for butter in a lot of recipes anyway? I’ll be trying that out, too!

So it’s nothing exciting, for sure, but I thought it was pretty cool (and yummy!). Let me know if you try it!

Now through Saturday, March 13th you can save a whopping $25 off all orders of $100 or more. And better yet? You’ll also get free shipping!

All you need to do to take advantage of this week’s specials is to place an order at www.gardengirlskincare.com and use coupon code March8 when you check out.

Happy shopping!!

I have been dying to get my hands on a steam cleaner. What better way to clean the house without chemicals? I had watched (an embarrassingly large number of times) the infomercial for the Shark steam pocket. I read reviews online which were mixed – so I checked into other steam cleaners, some of which had better reviews. But when it came down to it, I was at Costco this weekend and they had the Shark. I think it was $80ish? So I figured, what the heck? Costco has an amazing return policy so I knew if it was a piece of junk, then I could always return it. I brought it home and couldn’t wait to use it. Much to my husband’s eye-rolling, I pulled it out at 9pm on Saturday night after I finally had a minute to check it out.

I got all the zillions of pieces out and quickly read the quick start guide. Then I got going on our bathroom sink – and my first reaction was.. “eh”. It was OK. Definitely NOT like what I saw on the infomercial (I know, how SHOCKING!).  We have hard water here so we get calcification on the faucets. I was really hoping that this would soften that – but not so much. However, I did notice that it loosened it enough for me to scrape it off more effectively than I’ve been able to do in the past. So that’s not bad, I guess?

It did an amazing job on the toilets which was a bonus. Suffice it to say, I live with 3 males (…) so the toilets can be, um, disgusting. Cleaning with the Shark,I didn’t actually have to touch anything (yea!) and was able to sanitize and clean the outside of the toilet and around the bottom easily. What they don’t show on TV, though, is that you usually have to wipe up after steaming. But still, overall, I was happy with the toilet cleaning bit.

Cleaning the showers was more “eh”. It does make the chrome sparkle which is nice. But there’s still a lot of elbow grease needed to get rid of soap scum etc. I guess I was wishfully thinking that this would be some miracle tool that would make cleaning fun (I know, I must have been watching the infomercial after that second glass of wine…).

So here’s my boiled-down (so to speak) assessment:

The good:

• Relatively easy to use (some flaws, see bel0w)
• Chemical-free
• Works great on chrome, toilets, getting dirt from nooks & crannies and tiny places
• Excellent at getting rid of greasy grime in the kitchen (stove top, microwave, toaster oven)
• It comes with a canvas bag that you can easily store everything in
• It is very portable – the cord is super long

The “not what I’d hoped for”:

• Didn’t get rid of hard water stains without a lot of elbow-grease
• Didn’t do any better than scrubbing with Bon Ami on getting rid of burnt-on mess on the stove top
• A little messier than I had thought – can leave a lot of water behind that you have to wipe up
• Not sure that using the attachments with the cloth steam pockets is actually disinfecting anything – it doesn’t seem hot enough. The cloth pockets seem to trap and cool the steam? I need to investigate more.
• It is hard to press the steam button with one hand and scrub with another if you need to hold onto smaller items. In general this isn’t a problem but cleaning the teapot was tricky.

So I guess if I was giving it a rating using a 5 star scale, I would give it a 2 1/2 stars rating. I suspect I’ll keep it because it is handy for certain jobs. But definitely not the revolutionary tool I was dreaming of…