We do a little bit of cleaning and tidying daily, but as spring approaches, it's time to enter deep cleaning mode. Here are a few of the chores that we find easier and more pleasant to do because of the botanical mood-enhancers that are active in our products.
The kitchen tends to be the ‘engine room’ of our home, so we've started here. Our Natural Multi-Purpose Kitchen Cleaner with Lemon Myrtle and Mandarin was one of the first products to the market when we launched in early 2017. It’s a solvent-free degreaser that never streaks, and performs better than mainstream products, specifically because as well as doing a first class cleaning job and smelling wonderful, it leaves no harmful residue, and won't damage your skin. With its rich, creamy citrus smell and powerful antibacterial, antifungal, and antimicrobial properties, Lemon Myrtle (Backhousia citriodora) is often considered the queen of the lemon herbs. Mandarin (Citrus reticulata) is a great deoderiser and antibacterial as well as a mood-enhancer. Quite simply, these are two of nature’s best remedies for tackling stubborn surface grime and they also kill 99.99% of germs. This product can be used everywhere to clean the fridge, bench tops, kids’ lunchboxes, wherever.
We also clean our kitchen and bathroom bins with our Natural Stainless Cleaner. It contains Peppermint (Mentha piperata) essential oil: this is a total all-rounder with its antimicrobial, antifungal, antibacterial, antioxidant, and insect-repellent properties. Cleaning bins is never a favourite task, but a regular quick spray, wipe round, and they are effortlessly mint-fresh and clean.
While we're on the subject of kitchen-based chores, we want to give a huge shout out to one our Natural Dish Soap, because it achieves something we thought impossible: it makes doing the dishes a positively pleasurable experience. Like the multi-purpose cleaner, our Natural Dish Soap contains the essential oils from Lemon Myrtle and Mandarin, so you get two of nature’s super-cleaners, plus a fresh uplifting scent while you do the dishes. The dish soap formula has a lush, velvety consistency, and is PH balanced so it is soft on your hands. It’s an excellent degreaser, and is antibacterial, so perfect for everything from glasses to pots and pans. We like using it with our Koala Eco scrubbing brushes and cloths (made from organic bamboo). Incidentally, mixed with a bucket of warm water, this dish soap is a great cleaner for just about anything.
To keep floors clean and to discourage dust from resettling, we have our Natural Peppermint and Mandarin Floor Cleaner. We formulated this cleaner for any type of surface, however it works particularly well on wood, and not just floors. Just a few squirts in a bucket, and it can be used to clean all wooden furniture and bookshelves. As an important part of our production and development processes, we’ve had our cleaners tested on multiple surfaces including marble, concrete, and porous stone, to ensure they won’t damage any of these materials, and to make sure we are using a safe amount of essential oils. Every test has given us beautiful results. We do however always recommend a patch test when you use the cleaner for the first time on a new surface. This cleaner's aroma infuses the entire home, and gives you a mood boost at the same time. Peppermint is reputed to stimulate memory and concentration while alleviating headaches.
When it comes to bathroom cleaning, we have our Natural Multi-Purpose Bathroom Cleaner contains Eucalyptus Radiata Australiana (Eucalyptus radiata) essential oil, and this is packed with antibacterial, antifungal, antiseptic, and insect-repellent properties, plus the formula we’ve created is really efficient at removing dirt and scum. It smells as fresh as a rainforest after a light shower, and it's wonderful to be able to breathe in the scent of eucalyptus (which is a natural decongestant). At the same time you’re doing the cleaning, you’re also clearing your airways!
Once we’d successfully launched our bathroom and kitchen range, we turned our attention to other products that focused more on personal care (like body lotions and hand washes), and tasks like laundry. There’s something so wonderful about using natural, plant-based formulas for laundering clothes and bedding etc. First of all, they manage to be gentle on fibres and materials (we don’t include any artificial optical brighteners) while being ultra-effective at eliminating dirt, dust mite allergens and microbes. And then there’s the fresh, botanical bouquet, which infuses not only the laundry but also the whole house. We've developed two Natural Laundry Washes, one with Lemon Scented Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus citriodora) and Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), and the other with Mandarin and Peppermint. Both formulas offer top antiseptic and antifungal protection, so it choosing between the two can be a difficult choice. Do you want your washing to take on a woody, herbaceous scent mixed with the aroma of lemon, or the crisp coolness of peppermint with a sweet twist of mandarin?
If you're pressed for time and just want to give heavy-use areas of the home a bit of a freshen up in between more intensive cleaning sessions, we've developed a quick and easy product. Responding to the increased need for hand sanitisers and on-the-go solutions for hygiene, we’ve developed a Natural Hand and Surface Spray with Lemon Scented Tea Tree (Leptospermum petersonii). Because it can kill 99.99% of germs, it’s ideal for a quick fix if you just want to make sure that surfaces, door knobs and taps are clean and disinfected. A we make the spray in a handy 150ml size, you can just pop it in you bag and go.
Another great product we use constantly is our Natural Room Spray with Australian Pink Grapefruit and Peppermint. For an instant mood uplift, just mist it around the rooms or on linens. Pink Grapefruit (Citrus paradisi) is a champion stress reducer, and of course the smell of peppermint has the wonderful ability to calm as well as refresh. The Room Spray (and a similar, sleep-promoting Pillow and Linen Spray, which we’re currently developing) is a perfect illustration of our philosophy at Koala Eco, which is somewhat inspired by the early Transcendentalists like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Followers of this movement believed immersion in the sights, sounds and smells of nature to be a deeply spiritual and enriching experience. By making it easier to bring the outdoors indoors (so to speak), we believe we are offering a way for people to change up the routine of household cleaning into a more sensual and therapeutic experience; so that care for the self becomes indivisible from care for the home and family, and consideration for the planet.
