This week’s theme is multi-tasking, or, rather, the items in our homes that can multi-task.
Blue Dawn, which I expounded on last week, is only one of the many things that I have found multiple uses for. This week, it’s Borax.
Mary Hunt’s awesome site – Debt-Proof Living also turned me on to the wonders of Borax, just as it did the wonders of blue Dawn. Mary recommended it for freshening laundry, so I, as the slavering acolyte of Mary’s I am, naturally went out and bought a box, and found to my delight that it was good for more than just getting the musty smell out of towels.
Like blue Dawn, Borax is non-toxic, and readily available in the laundry aisle of your favorite store. It’s cheap and has a thousand uses at least. What’s not to love?
Among my favorite uses for Borax are:
- Cleaning the toilet. I have two of the stupidest and most endearing cats in the world, cats that can sit on the edge of the toilet and play with the water for as long as they can get away with it. This necessitates using something that is non-toxic to clean the toilet with. I use Borax just as I would any other powdered toilet cleaner – just sprinkle some in the toilet and clean away. Usually, I will scrub the toilet, and let the Borax-ed water sit overnight. Clean toilet, healthy albeit foolish cats.
- Flea killer. Said foolish cats also attract fleas. Eeeewww. When I first got both foolish cats, they were stray foolish kittens, and were quite flea bitten. They’d managed to drag fleas in the house before I knew what had happened to me. Sprinkling Borax on the carpet, just as you would a powdered flea killer, letting it sit for awhile, then vacuuming. Voila! No more fleas! I have also used Borax outside the house to keep vermin from coming in. Just sprinkle Borax around your home’s outside walls to deter pests. However, take care not to sprinkle on flowers or other plants, as Borax will deter them, too.
- Cleaning hard water stains off glass and china. 90% of my dishes were bought at second hand stores or given to me by family members (and just let me brag that I have collected no less than 10 full sets of dishes this way. And yes, I am seeking help for my dish addiction.). Unfortunately, many people in my area have hard water, or, to be more succinct, water with such a high sulfur content that it comes out of the faucet rusty. This means that many of the dishes I acquire have some degree of staining. I have found that soaking them in a Borax and water solution will eliminate many of these stains; for the more difficult stains, I make a paste of Borax/water and scrub. Hard.
- Wall/woodwork cleaner. When the job is simply too big for a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, clean your walls with this – 1 tablespoon Borax, 3/8 cup white vinegar and 1 quart of very hot water. This is safe for washable painted walls, and does not leave the sticky film that many commercial cleaners recommended for this result in (Murphy’s Oil Soap comes to mind). This is also great for cleaning kitchen cabinets, and again, will not leave a sticky film that attracts more grease and Lord only knows what else.
- Glass Shower Door Cleaner. I alternate between blue Dawn and Borax for this job, but when I first moved into the practice Barbie Dream House, I went straight for the Borax, simply because it appeared to me that the glass shower doors had not been cleaned since they were installed in oh, 19-freaking-72!!!! Borax made short work of this job.
There are many more uses for Borax that I have not listed, mostly because I haven’t had time to try them yet. You can find a great list at the 20-Mule Team Borax
website .
And, the next time your children are bored out of their minds and driving you nuts, before telling them to go play in the road, try this super-neat Borax activity with them. If this doesn’t keep them occupied for about 24 hours, then tell them to go play in the road.
