No, don't feel compelled to answer this - it's a rhetorical question coming from someone who is obviously smitten by the wonders of baking soda. Specifically, it's deoderizing and cleaning properties.
The following few are my top favorite properties...
1. Inexpensive silver polish - what? You go buy jewellry cleaners to polish tarnished silver?? (we have a lot of religious items made in silver that get easily tarnished). Bah - all you need is an aluminum tray, some boiling hot water and some baking soda. It's like a chemistry expirement unfolding in front of your eyes - almost like magic. Just line the tray with the items, throw in the baking soda and pour boiling water, watch the transformation and marvel! For tougher tarnish, even simply using it as a scouring powder on a soft sponge will accomplish the same effect. Wash well with warm water.
2. Deoderize your fridge/freezer/garbage pails - I simply keep some baking soda in a little dish and refresh every so often. No need to buy those boxes at the grocery store...this works just as well and it's the same damn thing anyway! In the garbage can, I just throw some into the new bag every week.
And last but not the least...deoderize and clean plastic baby bottles (or glass if you are so inclined)!
So flashback to the hospital (when R and I were rather sleep deprived and weren't really using our brains and following the nurses advise like gospel truth), we were instructed to use just plain old palmolive dish soap and warm water to wash the baby's bottles. Not only that, they even gave us an itty bitty bottle of the soap to use. So naturally when that ran out, we just added on to the itty bitty bottle with the dish soap we use at home for regular dishwashing a.k.a palmolive.
When MnM visited they said Aarush had developed an aversion to the lingering soap smell in his bottles and would refuse them -- which led them to use fragrance free (and supposedly non-toxic) Seventh Generation dish soap. M also recommended we make the switch even if Ahana is not showing any signs of distress.
In my mind - soap is soap is soap is soap. Seventh Generation claims to make their version with "plant derived" compounds as opposed to petroleum based compounds. Which to me means, essentially the soap is the same composition just that it's origins are different. So it's non toxic and environmentally friendly and fragrance free and all that is great - but it's still soap.
So me being me, I went and compared the ingredients on Palmolive to the ingredients on Seventh Generation and found (somewhat to my relief) that about 75% of the ingredients were the same chemical compounds. Yes, there didn't seem to be any phosphates but I don't know what phosphates can and cannot do. I am a lay person with a slightly analytical bent of mind - I don't claim to be a chemist! And I say relief because, can you imagine the thoughts going into my head - as though I am not doing right by Ah by washing her bottles in la palmolive.
I even brought it up with the Ped - she was useless (I don't like her...) and she just said, just rinse everything really well. Even for adults, we don't know how things work, so just rinse well. And if the smell bothers you switch to "organic" or Seventh Generation. OKAY then, didn't I just tell you SG is almost the same as palmolive?! Useless...
So anyway, the smell didn't bother Ah but it had been nagging me and I started thinking about alternatives to get rid of the soap smell from Ah's bottles. Bingo! Baking soda to the rescue. Not only did it get rid of the smell, it also made the bottles squeaky clean. And it's eco-friendly and harmless to boot! And natural. And easy on your skin (in fact it makes an excellent face scrub, I keep some in the shower.) And CHEAP! And it has antiseptic and disinfectant properties. And did I say cheap?? -- buy a big bag at BJs for like 5-6 bucks and it will last you a year if not more! So now I just soak her stuff in a hot water + baking soda solution, scrub and rise well. I was just so thrilled with the results I had to put them down somewhere and what better place to spread gyaan than my blog and maybe my local mommy group -- they're on the hit list next!
So there - I just babified another post :-)
0 comments:
Post a Comment