Fresh Clean Home by Wendy Graham

Fresh Clean Home This is an unusual book for me to review as it is not about crafts, although if you follow the very easy recipes to create your own cleaning products you will be crafting them. I must admit to not being too keen on the hippy dippy yoghurt knitter vibe that creating your own cleaning products might suggest. However Fresh Clean Home is  very far from that and is full of recipes for natural cleaning products from

Wendy Graham who runs the green living blog ‘Moral Fibres’. I love that name, it sums up the blog in two words.

This book shows you how to make your home smell as fresh as a daisy with these eco-friendly, money-saving, germ-busting recipes.

Using a base of essential oils and natural ingredients, these cleaning products are easy to make, are kinder to your skin and to the environment, while being as effective as any shop-bought solution.

The recipes use simple, inexpensive ingredients that are widely available such as bicarbonate of soda, vinegar, salt and citrus fruit, and will leave your home sparkling clean. You can even customize the fragrances to make your home smell crisp, time and time again.

Fresh Clean Home guides the reader from the kitchen to laundry and the bathroom, and also includes a section of recipes for specific household cleaning products, such as window and mirror cleaner, carpet and upholstery spot cleaner and sticky stuff remover.

Clean every nook and cranny, with surface cleaners and bathroom shiners, laundry powder and fabric conditioner, kettle descaler and more, for a beautiful, fresh clean home.

Obviously I had to do some testing, so first of all I tried the ‘Lemon Grove microwave cleaner’ It is very easy to make and did the job well.

I then went on to try out her method for getting ink stains out of garments. I have a much loved pair of cashmere finger-less mittens that were ink stained. Wendy  suggests putting ink stains in milk. I did just that and  the milk turned blue within twenty minutes and the stain came out. It felt like alchemy and I  am more than delighted with the result.

The third item I tried out was a necessity.  I was at a friend’s for dinner and whilst passing me a glass of wine she managed to  tip a lit candle on to  me, the result was wax on a new cashmere cardigan, tee shirt, vest and trousers. The method of wax removal I was already familiar with, but for anyone who doesn’t know, it is the way to get rid of candle wax. Place a piece of brown paper over the  area where the wax is and iron with a warm iron . The wax will melt on the garment and go through to the paper. You may have to do it a few times before it all disappears. When you have removed as much as you possibly can, wash the garment. At the end of all that everything is as good as new and no stains!

A book I highly recommend. Oh and I forgot to mention, lovely styling and photography throughout the book. Photographs by Rachel Whiting.

Wendy Graham graduated with an MSc in Environment Sustainability from the University of Edinburgh in 2005, but it wasn’t until she became a mum that she started her blog in 2013. Since then she has shown thousands of readers how easy, affordable and stylish it can be to love a greener life. Whilst interested in a wide range of environmental topics, green cleaning is a particular passion.

£12.99

Published by Pavilion