A Greener Way To Get Your Whites, White

We have gone over the more environmentally friendly cleaning products in a past post. But one thing we didn't really touch on is keeping white clothes white without all that harmful chlorine bleach. For almost a year I have been trying to figure out a way to keep my husbands socks clean and white with out the bottle of bleach, now I share with you what I have learned.

It is best to avoid most bleach, sodium hypochlorite, moderately toxic chlorine that can potentially bond with other chemicals to form cancer-causing toxins in the wastewater system.

Oxygen bleaches are available and found primarily in health food stores, and are based on hydrogen peroxide not chlorine. I like Seventh Generation's Non-Chlorine Bleach-Free & Clear with oxygen bleach stabilizers, but sometimes it can be hard to find.

Want to try something more natural? Add a ½ a cup of lemon juice to the rinse cycle of a medium load of whites it will lightly bleach your clothes. If you have a lemon tree in your yard, this is a great way to use some of those extra lemons that don't make it into the lemonade.  

Another kind of "old school" product that I just stared using over the weekend, and it really worked is borax. It's actually a natural mineral compound. I know it's probably what your grandmother used but she used it for a reason. My whites looked really bright and it has a fresh scent to it. It turns out that it's one of those natural products like baking soda, which can be used for tons of other stuff around the house. And it's cheap. I'm told it works best if you don't have hard water.