Carpet Cleaning Au Naturel: What You Need To Reproduce The Most Popular Green Cleaners On The Market
Posted on: 6 January 2015
Reading all about plant-derived natural cleaners and green carpet cleaning, you might want to know if you can make your own cleaning product ingredients. Some chemicals are not available on your supermarket or pharmacy shelves, but others are. As for the scents and deodorizing cleaners, you can grow lavender and other plants for their essential oils. Here are the most common ingredients in green carpet cleaners, and how you can use them to make your own.
Oxidizing Elements
Most of the time this means that the product has a combination of peroxide and a base chemical, like baking soda, in it. This type of green clean helps remove protein stains, such as blood, and natural stains, such as grass and mud. It only goes so far, but if your carpet is only soiled from high traffic, then this is the type of product that will work best for you.
Wood Grain Alcohol
Green cleaners with this active ingredient are most effective on greasy and fatty stains. Wood grain alcohol breaks down the molecular structure that causes fats and greases to stick to surfaces. If your dog dragged an old turkey carcass out of the garbage and halfway down your carpeted hallway while you were at work, this is the product you want to remove the greasy turkey mess from the carpet. Wood grain alcohol is extracted from certain trees and fermented. In its purest form, it is extremely toxic, but in green cleaners, it is harmless to everything but stains. You can purchase it via the internet, but some states require a hazardous materials license before allowing delivery.
Sodium Borate (Borax)
This is a natural salt derivative combined with a few molecules of an organic cleanser. It works on sticky stains like jam and jelly, the ones your kids created when they dropped their PB&J open-faced sandwiches on the carpet. It needs a little scrubbing tool to get into the mess, but then it lifts the stain up. You might be concerned about the Borate part of the compound, but it is quite diluted in most green cleaners such that it will not harm kids or pets.
Rubbing Alcohol
Yes, rubbing alcohol is in many green cleaners. It is a disinfectant and an astringent. Although you could buy this and some oxidizing elements at your local drugstore, you could never quite get the chemical balance correct to safely clean carpet. You can use rubbing alcohol to clean cupboards and countertops, but without other additives, it will not do much for carpet.
Other Types of Cleaners
Some other products on the market bear the "green" label. Several of them are deodorizers, which help remove funky odors from your carpet. If your house smells too much like wet dog, then natural odor destroyers like rosemary, lavender and mint can banish the smell from under your feet. These are usually sold in spray bottles as well, but you can make your own by buying essential oils from a spa and diluting them in water.
If you need your carpet cleaned professionally and still want it done in an eco-friendly way, contact Chem-Dry of Fort Myers.
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