Do you have any suggestions for places to buy bulk ( 1kg to 5kg ) baking soda and citric acid? (online shopping for this stuff is killed by the shipping costs).
We ( my spouse and myself ) have enjoyed using them as household cleaners over the toxic commercial products ( our dog has toxicity driven epilepsy, even windex can trigger his seizures ). But we go through the grocery store bought sizes very quickly.
Thanks!
Canadian tire has larger sizes than the grocery store.
Pretty sure you can buy those at chemical supply houses. I was looking for
citric acid a while back and I think my research led me to local compounding
pharmacies as a good source. There are a few in town.
You can also get it from the MMS folks in bulk as that’s one of the
constituents.
https://sodiumchloriteforsale.com/collections/all/citric-acid
As to baking soda, Costco usually has a package of 8 or 10 small boxes for a
good price. Baking Soda along with Hydrogen Peroxide is another good cleaner
and is cheap to buy at Costco, though you’ll probably want to buy the food
grade 35% H2O2 from the health food store, note store it in the freezer for
longevity. See the book below for info on H2O2
https://www.amazon.com/Hydrogen-Peroxide-William-Campbell-Douglass/dp/9962636256
Though another product I’d recommend trying is Ecolsolve, it’s made from
banana tree bark, non-toxic to humans and animals, but is antibacterial and
whole bunch of other features, cleans up grease quite well and good around
the cat litter box for removing smells too.
http://www.ecosolvenatural.com/
I know the person who’s brought it into Canada and I’ve been using it at home
for the past 18-24 months or so, it’s my primary cleaner now.
Just became available at retail at the beginning of August
Stongs, Bi-Lo, Choices, Quality Foods, Nestors and soon Whole Foods
Do you have an amazon prime membership? They have 10 lbs of citric acid for 43 bucks. I’m not sure how good of a deal that is though.
When you get a chance I’d love to talk cleaning recipes with you. I recently started making my own laundry detergent – Was kinda forced to as I react to most laundry detergents even unscented ones.
Also sorry to hear about your pup but it’s great you know what can trigger seizures.
Janet have you tried the SmartKlean ball?
We used it for a couple of years and it seemed to clean just fine, but it
keeps getting stuck at the bottom of the wash between the agitator and the
drum and when that happens it doesn’t do much cleaning. In a full load it
worked well, in less than a full load it would get stuck as above 
Thanks @hjsvhsweb that looks really cool. It’s got me wondering if I could make one.
Yeah, we have a few recipes we use now:
Vinegar, alcohol, water in equal parts and a drop of dish soap is a great laminate or hard floor cleaner
I use baking soda mixed with water to a toothpaste consistency for all surfaces that need mild disinfection, such as counter tops, bath tub, shower walls, sinks. To make it easier i attached a scrub brush to my cordless drill, makes cleaning the shower walls fun.
Window glass, any surfaces prone to mould, toilets, i use a correct mixture of chlorine bleach and water. Chlorine bleach, in the proper ratio will break down into salts. Too much bleach and you will have some chlorine gas. The CDC has a great pdf on using bleach for cleaning, disinfecting and preparing emergency water supplies for long term storage. I can’t find the PDF, but I did find my household notes about bleach use:
Bleach is for disinfection, not cleaning, always clean first, rinse and then disinfect. Don’t use hot water when mixing bleach as it will trigger the chlorine gas to separate.
Always use regular, non-scented bleach without additives (colorguard, softeners, etc). The measurements are for concentrated bleach (8.25%). Check the label.
Disinfecting surfaces that will come in contact with food/drinking water: 200ppm. Approx. 2 teaspoons (10mL) concentrated bleach into 1 gallon ( 4 litres ) of water.
Plastic cutting boards can be disinfected with 600ppm. 2 tablespoons (60mL) into 1 gallon.
Disinfecting other surfaces such as bathrooms, areas prone to mould: 2500ppm about 1/2 cup per gallon.
Warning about bleach and bathrooms ( both human or animal ): urine contains ammonia. Don’t mix bleach with ammonia. Clean the bathroom first, then disinfect with bleach.
For toilets i stopped using bleach products as the bleach breaks down the wax gasket under the toilet, now we use a mixture of baking soda, citric acid, a few drops of citrus essential oils (orange) and a few drops of dish soap. Mix well, spray a very small amount of water so the mixture can take shape. Press it into ice cube molds and let it dry. Now you have magical toilet cleaning pucks just drop one into toilet, watch the fun, run the brush around the rim and flush.
Dish soap and laundry soaps are the ones we have not been able to replace away from commercial products. We do use “natural” commercial products for those and so far we are happy.
We use “Green Works” by Clorox for dish washing and “nature clean” unscented for laundry.
There are other products like this out there, one I’ve seen uses magnets,
never tried it, thought it’s on my todo list
http://www.lifemiracleusa.com/laundry-system-faq.htm
I remember seeing devices advertised to use in the laundry to replace
detergent in the Common Ground Magazine over 20 years ago, so this isn’t a
new thing and you should have several options to draw from to make your own
device.
Thanks Hector - I’ll try some of those as I pretty much have all the ingredients around the place. Right now I use this recipe to make laundry detergent. It still uses a commercial soap though but I don’t seem to be allergic to it.
Ingredients:
1 cup liquid Castile soap (I use
1 cup baking soda
2 cups water
1/3 cup salt
Dissolve the baking soda and salt in the two cups of warm water. Pour into a gallon container, add the liquid Castile soap and fill to the top with water. Use 1/4 of a cup per load
I use organic baby castile soap when I can find it on sale.
The Soap Dispensary on Main Street has a lot of cleaning products, as well as the chemicals to make them, available in bulk. I know they have baking soda, and their website lists Citric Acid too. Bring a container for them to fill so you don’t have to buy one there. It’s a cool shop just to go check out too, they also have some food products like honey and olive oil in bulk.
Found this place also when looking for more of the Nelli’s laundry soda, we’d
bought a 17.5lb tub from Costco for about $50 IIRC a couple years back.
We’ve been happy with the Nellie’s Laundry Soda and costco.ca carries it on
the website, the 1100 load bulk container is $100.
http://www.costco.ca/CatalogSearch?keyword=nellie&pageSize=96
I ended up buying 5kg of baking soda and 5kg of citric acid from Amazon and just picked free shipping. I can tide us over for the next 2 weeks with store bought quantities.
Just out of curiosity, what was total cost?
$72 ( $43 for citric acid, $25 for baking soda. baking soda was sold by amazon so I had to pay GST/PST on it)
Hector, that larger post you wrote was real interesting, thanks.
I was just looking up Zote soap when I found 5.44kg of baking soda for US$7.55 at Walmart.com. They also have citric acid. Arm & Hammer Pure Baking Soda, 12 lb., Reseable Bag - Walmart.com
I use 7th Generation, Ecomax, Ecover or Echoclean laundry detergents depending on which is on sale for cheap. I occasionally use Orange cleaner for the toilet. I don’t have bleach.
Off topic: I’ve made my own deodorant for over 8 years, its cheap, easy and it works but your body may need time to adapt to it, your body now isnt fighting these chemical underarm products, which I feel are designed for you to keep using and keep buying it. I found that they ruined my shirts too.
I dont use plastic cutting boards, they need disinfecting, yet wood naturally harbours bacteria that neutralizes other bacteria, but since I dont cook raw birds of any kind, there wont be any deadly bacteria around, so a simple wash with mild soap solution is all I use.
Yes, I love wood cutting boards, however it is difficult to find reasonably priced wood cutting boards that do not use glues (made up of smaller wood strips).
Yep, that price for baking soda is the lowest I have seen yet. For those who do not get a chance to shop at US walmart, I found 1Kg arm & hammer baking soda boxes at Rona for $3.35. This is by far the lowest price I have seen in Canada.
We tried 7th generation for a while, but found that when combined with our front loader “High Efficiency” washer we ended up with smelly clothes.
Follow up on my Amazon purchase:
The Citric Acid came in a medium thickness plastic bag. It had not been properly sealed, somebody tried to fix it by applying packing tape. Didn’t work too well, but at least the spillage was minor.
The Baking soda came inside Kraft paper bags that had been stapled shut. It was also labelled “for cleaning purposes only” which tells me it may have impurities. The bags were loosely packed in a flimsy box ( for the weight it was carrying ). Both bags leaked from numerous tears in the kraft paper bags. The bigger box contained most of the spill, however I could see baking soda spilling out of the corners of the box every time it was moved.
So as of right now, the cheapest source of bulk baking soda in the lower mainland is Rona ( I bought it at the Grandview location in the cleaning products aisle) 1Kg box for $3.35, Arm & Hammer brand, food grade.
Hey Hector - have you ever tried making a DIY rinse agent for a dishwasher? (i.e. a replacement for Jet Dry?)
I found this recipe. I’m not sure what impact the hydrogen peroxide would have on the rubber gaskets in the dishwasher but it seems pretty low concentration once mixed.
Also I’d skip the essential oils.
Interesting, I’ve been using white vinegar for a few years as I’d read that was a good replacement but then the thread on the rinsing slot got worn off and the little screw in device (what do you call that) no longer stays in place so I think the rinsing function no longer works.
My recollection is the vinegar did do a good job though.