One of the questions I’m asked a lot in person (and online via email) is the type of cleaners I use. Quite a few of my friends are looking for gentle products to clean their homes. Since they know I’m not a fan of using harsh chemicals they will come to me for advice. Some of them are a bit surprised when I tell them my favorite cleaner is distilled white vinegar.

The only thing I don’t like about vinegar is the smell, but that dissipates shortly after the surface is dry so I can live with the area smelling like pickles since it’s such an effective cleaner.

White vinegar is a weak acid that contains about 5 percent acetic acid. Because of this it can be extremely effective for removing calcium deposits, water deposits from glass, tarnish from certain metals like brass and copper, and stains from sinks.

I’ve found that white vinegar is an extremely effective way to clean our floors. Over the years, I’ve noticed that it leaves our floors much cleaner (for longer) than any other “fancy product” that I could purchase. In fact, I’ve been using white vinegar as my “cleaner solution” with my Hoover Twin Tank Steam mop with much success.  I also use vinegar to clean my windows!

While I occasionally use apple cider vinegar for my natural vegetable washes when it comes to cleaning around the home I always reach for distilled white vinegar.

Yesterday My Hoover Twin Tank Steam Mop arrived by postal mail. Yeah!

Jennifer says: May 7, 2013 at 11:11 am (Edit)
I’m very interested in this! Possibly for my kitchen floors! I have been using mops – HATE them! I have used the Magic Eraser push mop thing – don’t really like that either! I have had the best luck getting down on my hands and knees and scrubbing it with the Magic Eraser and towel drying it as I go! BUT…that takes a LONG time…grrrr!
Jennifer recently posted..Several Recipes & Foods From The Weekend!

As I promised Jennifer in my comment section, I’ll be writing a “first impressions” review on the Hoover Steam Mop. I’m hoping to have it completed by this weekend. I’m conducting a few tests and I might even add some video footage of the steam mop in action. I do think this mop is great for someone who’s tired of scrubbing floors. Although I used a mop, I normally found the most effective cleaning was getting on my hands and knees and going to town. Now, I won’t have too unless I’m simply longing to do that and I really don’t think that’s going to happen!

My daughter loves this steam mop!

When I wrote about purchasing this mop a few days ago, I forgot to mention that mopping would be added  as one of my daughters chores. It’s not something she’ll be doing all the time, but when I don’t have time I’ll ask her to use the mop.  She’s heard me raving about this mop for a few days and she made sure to give me the You’re really crazy, mom look. She just couldn’t see why this was a breakthrough in my normal cleaning routine.

I purposely waited until I picked her up from school to start testing out the Hoover TwinTank Disinfecting Steam Mop. Well, she got really curious seeing all the steam and the ease of use and the obvious fun I was having with the steam mop.  She quickly pushed me to the side and started using it herself. She even redid the large kitchen floor that had already been clean. She told me she really loves the mop. She’s fascinated by all the steam it produces.

In our house we mainly have hardwood floors throughout the house; basement, main floor, and upstairs. However we have granite in the kitchen, dining room and entrance area. We have linoleum in one of the bathrooms.

Frustrated with some online reviews…

One of the frustrations I encountered when searching for reviews, outside of Amazon, were the amount of folks who got this product as a free gift. Apparently Hoover gave away a lot of these mops in exchange for people writing about this steam mop on their personal websites. Most of those reviews were posted on August 16 & 17, 2012.

Giving away products to consumers to review is fine, but If your calling yourself a product reviewer, I’m expecting that reviewer to give a thorough analysis of the product which means I want to hear the things you don’t like about the product. It makes sense to include the negatives also, right?   Since I got tired of wading through the pages of blogs that received this product from Hoover and not reading too much else besides a “glowing review” I went back to the Amazon website since I found thorough reviews there. I liked that many of the Amazon reviewers gave the pros and cons of this product. On a few of my personal sites I do receive products to reviews; not much and only for items that genuinely interest me. However,  I do take my time and write what I hope is a helpful review piece that includes things I dislike and what I wish they’d change.

Needs Improvement list for the Hoover Twin Tank Steam Mop

Regarding the Hoover Twin Tank Steam Mop, I do have a “needs improvement” list for this product and I’ll be sure to include that in my first impressions review, but overall I’m really impressed with this steam mop and I would purchase it again! The fact that I actually look forward to mopping is really saying something, because I really dislike that activity but do it weekly since I like a clean house.

As you can see, from the above picture, the Hoover steam mop doesn’t take up too much space. Which is perfect for us. It now has it’s home in one of our bathrooms.

Question:  Are there any cleaning gadgets you can’t live without?

Most of the time I use stainless steel pitchers for the smoothies and juices I make…

But sometimes I find that (depending on what I toss into my juices/smoothies) that some of the ingredients can react with the metal. While I much prefer my stainless steel pitchers (I love the way stainless steel looks!) If I’m concerned about metal reaction I usually reach for one of my glass pitcher. The thing is, unlike my stainless steel pitchers none of my glass pitchers have tops. If I need a pitcher with a top,  I’ll pull out my lonely  plastic pitcher.

Yesterday is an excellent example… You remember that Mango green smoothie that I made? That was put into my plastic pitcher because it had a top, but I wasn’t thrilled about doing that. However since  I don’t like leaving my juices or smoothies ‘topless’ in the refrigerator into the plastic pitcher it went!

I’ve never been fond of plastic storage containers. I like the heaviness of metal/glass. Which is why you’ll find that all my food storage containers are made of glass. Initially I was concerned about breakage, but I’ve had my containers for over nine years and they haven’t broken yet.

Well guess what? I finally found a heavy duty glass pitchers (with tops) that I like! I should be receiving them sometime next week!

I’ll recycle my plastic pitcher by cutting a bit off the top and turning it into a storage container for some of my daughter’s crafts.

Yesterday, I made a juice blend of carrots, ginger, garlic, spinach and kale.

The carrots added sweetness to the blend and the ginger added a bit of spice (along with energy). Garlic was added since it’s great for the immune system (just like ginger.) Spinach and kale were added since they both have numerous vitamins and minerals. Vitamins A, C, and K are some of the numerous nutrients that can be found in Kale. Kale also contains lutein and zeaxanthin compounds which are excellent for eye health.

About seven years ago, my eye doctor commented on the improvement he saw in my eyes. The only difference, was I’d started juicing several times weekly.

I’m not much of a supplementation person, I find that I stay in “top shape” (not just my words but my health care providers also) by making correct health food choices, exercising, and handling issues I face in a non-stressful manner. When it comes to foods, I mainly eat whole foods. Which means, I stay as close to the natural food source as possible. Because of that,  you won’t see me purchasing too many processed foods or supplements. I figure I don’t need them if I’m making healthy whole food choices. It seems my health care provider agrees with me.

A quick and easy way to increase the amount of nutrients I consume is by juicing. I’m able to consume much larger quantities of nutrients than I’d ever be able to eat in one sitting. My Green Star juicer has a permanent stop on our kitchen counter top. The juicer cost me over $300, but was well worth the price I paid. I figured with a high quality juicer I most likely wouldn’t need a plethora of supplements, and I was right. In the late 1990s (a few years after being vegan) I did purchase supplements. Marketing is good for those products, but I was skeptical and after a lot of nutrition research I figured I most likely could get the same results simply by eating whole foods.  I was right.