One of our goals for becoming more green was to change the cleaners and various products we use in our home – replacing standard, chemical-laden products with non-toxic, biodegradeable alternatives.

The first brand we tried was Mrs. Meyer’s and we immediately fell in love!

The Surface Scrub was the first MM product we actually bought - in the Lavender scent.  Lea really liked it, but she is a big fan of serious scrubbing – she cleans a mean shower, let me tell you!  Personally, while I liked the scent, I am really not a big fan of powder cleaners, so I just couldn’t get behind this product whole-heartedly.  I even left it behind in our bathroom closet when we moved out – but maybe it will inspire whoever buys our house (please oh please, someone buy our house) to try green cleaners, too! 

After the surface scrub, we tried the Counter Top Spray (again in Lavender scent) – and this product I absolutely LOVE!  I love the scent, which is clean and fresh but not overpowering.  Surprisingly even Lea likes it and normally she hates Lavender or anything even remotely flowery smelling!  More importantly, it cleans great and doesn’t leave behind any nasty chemical smells or residue.  I love knowing that the ingredients are natural and safe for the environment.  I used this stuff everywhere – kitchen, bathroom, random cleaning – and it always worked great. 

In fact, we used this so often that we ran out soon enough!  But rather than buy another bottle of the Counter Top Spray, this time we bought a big bottle of the All Purpose Cleaner.  This option is so cost-effective, we just refill our spray bottle using a little bit of the cleaner and water, and it works just as well as the spray.  The All Purpose Cleaner has instructions on the proportions to use, and this way we don’t have to buy multiple bottles (that we can’t recycle here in Alaska).  I wish all the products I buy for home and bath could be refillable this way!

There has been some concern in the past about MM and parabens but they haven’t used them in their products since January 2007 which is great news!

When we moved to Alaska, we were concerned about whether we would ever find our coveted cleaner again – but lo and behold we found it in several locations including our grocery stores as well as the local feed store (sells dogfood etc.). The feed store sells more MM products than we ever knew existed, so score one for Alaska! We may not have recycling but at least we can clean green.