When I first received the copy of “Simply Clean;  Using Essential Oils To Clean Your Home Naturally” I thought it was probably going to be a list of recipes and different ways you can use them. While the book does contain those elements, it is so much more!

About the book

The author, Lauren Hayes Gilbert, takes the time to tell us her story and journey into a holistic lifestyle. She tells us about how she used to be just like most of us – eating foods advertised on TV, buying products off the shelf, and trusting that everything was safe and healthy.

Then she got sick. Really sick. She was unable to heal through conventional methods and started researching on her own to try and find a way to live better, to live healthier, and to really start treating her body the way it should be treated.
While this book does not go into great detail regarding the different aspects of how she now lives her life (other than some brief mentions), it does give you a wonderful background and history as to what essential oils are, what to look for when buying them, how they can be beneficial, and how you can use them very easily in your everyday life. Lauren even goes a step further and gives you a very thorough background into commercial cleaners and different chemicals to watch out for. She really did her homework before publishing this book and I applaud her for that!

About holistic living

According to Simply Clean, holistic is defined as a belief that the individual parts of something are interconnected and explicable only by looking at the whole. It doesn’t mean you have to change who you are or give up your personal beliefs, but instead asks you to look at how you are, how you are living your life, and the quality you give it and its impact on the world around you.

Lauren also goes on to say, “If you don’t want to do Yoga, don’t want to get a juicer, or change the clothes you wear – you don’t have to. Living holistically isn’t about imitation or feeling pressured to be like what you see in health magazines. The road to understanding and enjoying the fact that we are all inter-connected starts with loving, nurturing, and accepting yourself.”  — I love this quote and couldn’t agree more!

Sample Essential Oils recipe from Simply Clean

This time of year the insects start regrouping after a long winter and you might find a stray bug or two creeping into your home. There is one culprit in particular that seems to be quite a nuisance in many homes — ants. If you are concerned about ants in your home, try this simple essential oils recipe to keep them at bay.

ants in the kitchen

Keeping Ants at Bay with essential oils

Ingredients:

  • 24oz/710ml spray bottle
  • water
  • peppermint oil
  • cotton balls

Method:

Fill your spray bottle with water and add 30 drops of peppermint oil. Spray this around windows, cracks, waste bins, and any other place that you have seen ants. Do this as often as you like. Alternatively, you can put 2 drops of peppermint oil on a cotton ball and run over window ledges, around baseboards, etc. You can also put a cotton ball with a single drop of peppermint oil inside cupboards, next to waste bins, or anywhere else you are concerned about ants. Refresh your cotton ball once a week.

p.s. I’ve heard peppermint oil works wonders for spiders as well!

essential oil

If you would like to learn more about essential oils, and get even more recipes on how to clean your home naturally I highly recommend this book. You can also follow along with the author on her blog, Airmid Botanicals.

I was provided a copy of this book for review purposes, all opinions are my own. Please note that I do not endorse any particular brand of essential oils and the image is for illustration purposes only. 

Image credit: Mrs SudsMuffin and James Murty