Get rid of ants!
I’ve always used borax to get rid of ants, but it’s one of those solutions I’m not thrilled with. Borax isn’t good for kids or pets to ingest, even though it’s all natural, so I have to be careful where I put it – only, the ants aren’t so selective about where they go.
So here are a few natural remedies that are 100% safe for people, pets, and planet.
- Cornmeal. Leave small piles where the ants come. It’ll keep them away for about 2 weeks until their cousins return, but yes – it kills them. So, if you have issues with killing ants keep reading.
- Vinegar. It’s a natural ant repellent. Put some in a spray bottle and spray where you see the little buggers.
- Chalk. Draw a line and the ants won’t cross it.
- Pepper – cayenne or black. Sprinkle some wherever ants are coming in, and they’ll stop coming. Just remember to re-sprinkle after you sweep or mop!
- Cinnamon. Just like pepper – for whatever reason, ants don’t do cinnamon.
Now for a little announcement. Come back one week from today – we’ll have a book review and a giveaway! You won’t want to miss it on Monday the 15th.
Medicine cabinet necessities for parents
All right, folks. In my nearly 6 years of parenting, with experience with 3 kids, here’s my list of absolute must-haves in the medicine cabinet.
- Bactine: The spray stuff that disinfects without hurting. I use it at least once a week for scraped knees.
- Sting-eeze: It’s a goop you put on bee stings or fire ant bites – made my daughter stop crying almost immediately. (It takes care of the pain, but doesn’t help allergic reactions)
- Age-appropriate Benadryl: Just in case of an allergic rash, or when that nose needs to stop running at night to let a child sleep.
- Age-appropriate Tylenol & Motrin: You don’t want to be caught with a 106º fever and nothing to battle it with – been there, done that.
- Vicks vapor rub: I slather it on my kids’ feet at bedtime if they’re coughing. It helps – I don’t know how, but it does.
- Honey: Mix it with a bit of lemon juice and give it by spoonfulls when someone has a cough. It’s all around good.
- A box of mixed character bandaids: I don’t dress my kids in character shirts or plaster their rooms with them, but when someone is teary over a scrape or cut, a little Spiderman or Care Bears accessory protects it and makes my kid happy. Wel worth it.
- Hyland’s remedies – for whatever your family needs. Sniffles & sneezes, teething tablets, calming, ear aches – stock up because they really work. And they’re homeopathic – even better!
- A really good humidifier, and a stock of vinegar to clean it with.
- Neosporin/polysporin – some type of ouchless antibiotic cream (not ointment) to help cuts heal faster.
- An easy to reach, well identified stock of any medications your child might need in a hurry – epi pen, anti-seizure meds, asthma inhaler.
Additionally, a good stock of gauze, medical tape, and a stretchy ace-type bandage – because there might come a day when you’re glad you have them on hand. What’s more? Keep it organized – there’s nothing worse than knowing something’s in that medicine cabinet, only to find that it’s so cluttered you can’t find it.
Do good!
Hat tip to Edelman PR for this little survey that tells us consumers want to do business with companies they can feel good about.
Image Credit: Edelman PR
Did you catch that? 67% of loyal consumers would switch brands due to participation in a cause. Brand loyalty used to be about product performance, service, and price. Now we’re seeing a fundamental shift in the way people value products and services. It’s no longer enough to produce a great product, support your customers, and price it well.
And today, causes go beyond American Cancer Society and Habitat for Humanity (even though those are awesome, and we wholeheartedly support them). Today we have a whole subculture of products that protect the environment, protect health, protect animals… Most people lump it all into the ‘green’ category, but when it comes down to it, ‘green’ consumers have highly segmented motivations. And there’s super loyal. In fact, ‘green’ consumers – once they find a product that suits their values, are unlikely to switch to a conventional product, even if it’s higher quality at a lower price.
Our consumers drive us to do better. They drive us to find creative ways to invest in our world and outdo ourselves. We love our clients for the way they motivate us. So, thank you for your loyalty. We promise to stand by the values that got us started – health for people, pets, and planet. We do it for you.
How to clean your pizza stone
So, you have a gorgeous pizza stone (or other ceramic unfinished bakeware) and now that you’re using it religiously you come across that difficult question of how to clean it.
In my house I use the pizza stone all the time. Sunday nights are pizza nights, so every Sunday the pizza stones finds its way into and out of the oven multiple times with pizzas of various toppings. But throughout the week I love the even cooking it does with cookie dough and even fish.
So, between uses, what’s the secret to keeping it clean? It’s a little tough because the ceramic is porous, you don’t want to use any chemicals or soap on it. In fact, most manufacturers caution against even water. Basically, ceramic stone cookware is for food, and only food. Let’s start with some typical questions about stonecare.
- Why no soap ? Because stone is so porous, any cleaning solutions will seep into the stone and remained trapped there. You won’t taste them because the heat of the oven burns them off, but that doesn’t mean they won’t contaminate your food.
- Why no water? The presence of water in stone could cause cracking over time. Baking stones don’t like water, so if you want it to last, treat it well.
There are two good ways to clean your stone that don’t involve water or soap. Don’t worry about discoloration – it’s going to happen, and it just ’seasons’ your stone, so to speak.
- A plastic scraper. You can find them in kitchen gadget stores and they’re one of my favorite cleaning tools ever. They don’t scratch surfaces (as long as they aren’t scratched, themselves). Hold it at a 45º angle and scrape away.
- The self-cleaning function on the oven. Just as it burns off gunk in your oven, it’ll burn off any impurities in your baking stone. Make sure you preheat slowly – heat the oven to 450º or so, then turn on the self-clean. Your stone will love you for it.
I like to keep my stone in the oven – it helps distribute heat evenly and maintain heat for longer times. It does take a little longer to preheat an oven with a stone in it, but the oven doesn’t have to work so hard once it’s hot.
How about you? What are your tips?
Industry standards – FINALLY! (I hope…)
Image Credit: NPA, via Wall Street Journal
Here at BroomHuggers one of our main concerns for the last 4-5 years has been the fluidity of the use of words like “natural,” “organic,” “eco-friendly,” especially in cleaning products. See, no one regulates the use of these words in cleaning products. I could make something out of ammonia, formaldehyde, and petrochemicals and say that it’s natural because the mood hit me. (Of course, I wouldn’t do that… but someone might…)
Green Seal has been a nice source of information, but often unhelpful. It seems that a lot of the small brands that would pass their criteria don’t have the funding to get the certification, and many of the big brands who care enough to certify are only available in industrial contexts.
The EPA has a Design for the Environment qualification, but it lets through pesky chemicals like 2-Butoxyethanol, a carcinogen. Environmentally friendly? I think not. Safe for people, pets, and planet? No.
So, to earn the new qualification of Natural Product Association certification, products will have to meet criteria including the following: 95% of the ingredients in the product, excluding water, must be derived from natural sources. Non-natural ingredients should be used only when alternative natural ingredients are unavailable. The product should contain no ingredients with suspected human health risks. NPA says it is reviewing full ingredient lists from manufacturers who have applied for certification to determine whether their products qualify. The seal will be seen on products in the next several months.
Clorox, the manufacturer of GreenWorks, is on the advisory committee for the organization, and while we don’t consider GreenWorks fully green, they have made larger strides than any other major mainstream manufacturer of cleaning products. So, while hopes are high, my feet are firmly grounded in the reality NPA standards won’t be any higher than GreenWorks.
I’d really like to see their list of ingredients with no suspected human health risks. We’ll see in the next few months which products qualify, and then we’ll know if this is just another incentive (and leverage) for companies to engage in greenwashing, or if we finally have a certification that separates the chaff from the wheat. I have high hopes for this one. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a nice little standard that everyone in the industry used that helped consumers differentiate products when they’re standing in the grocery store aisle trying to make a choice?
And hey, I have to give a shout-out to @squeaky_clean on Twitter who pointed out the news on the Wall Street Journal to us.
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