Magic Cleaning Potions – Do Natural Cleaning Chemicals Work?

The Case For Natural Cleaners – The marketing of natural cleaning products is something to be appreciated …. For those that like to market stuff like myself. They use all the key emotional triggers to push their peppermint based disinfectant or orange juice magic or other magic natural combo that you can practically drink (but should never) because it sounds so tasty.

Their Claims:

• They clean and disinfect better or the same as harsher chemicals
• There is a major health concern when using non-natural products
• They are better for people with asthma, allergies, etc

While many of these claims are not regulated and unproven there are products that actually list all their ingredients – and – are generally safer then the synthetic science experiment bought at Walmart.

Trade-Offs & Buyer Beware – Make sure you check out the back of the label and that all ingredients are listed. Watch out for phosphates, chlorine, ammonia, 2-Butoxyethanol, or sodium hydroxide.

Though their ingredients may be more environmentally friendly, green cleaners come with some trade-offs: They’re more expensive and may require more elbow grease to achieve the same level of visual cleanliness.

The reality is that many magic natural chemicals work primarily because your are agitating (elbow grease) and rinsing with little to do with that special bee pollen or bird feathers or whatever they throw and market like it’s the second coming of soap.

To Summarize – If safety is a concern some of these products may work better for people with asthma, allergies, etc such as Method or other brands. Make sure all chemicals are listed on the label and there are no toxic chemicals added. Just remember that many of them clean via the placebo effect – as in – they are only working because you are scrubbing – not because they are actually effective at cleaning. Also don’t count on these products to magically disinfect with peppermint – etc – peppermint is a joke and I don’t have time to go into detail but it doesn’t disinfect.

A final note is that if – for example – peppermint (or other natural cleaners) where effective then hospitals/etc would be using them. The truth is that the unregulated natural cleaning industry does not have to prove, test, or research anything they put out and market. So think twice when you hear outrageous claims when you consider multi-million dollar corporations that spend millions of dollars in research aren’t using peppermint to disinfect. Trust me, they didn’t just discover gravity and, with their $150 research budget, and beat the big labs.