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25 Great Ways to Use All Natural Borax
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In today’s modern world, we find ourselves surrounded by toxic chemicals, even in our home. But there are ways around this. It’s so easy to make your own all natural cleaning products that contain absolutely not chemicals whatsoever. Borax is a completely natural mineral whose technical name is sodium borate. It does not cause cancer, it does not accumulate (or build up) inside the human body, you will not absorb it through you skin, and it’s not harmful to the environment. Borax has been used for more than 100 years to clean everything from laundry to killing insects. It’s perfectly safe and harmless unless you (or your dog) plan on eating several pounds of it at one time. Don’t confuse Borax with boric acid. Two different animals.
Borax can be found in almost any supermarket in the laundry soap aisle. Besides being completely natural and non-toxic, it’s also super cheap!
Check out our list of the top 25 uses for Borax for cleaning almost everything around your home.
1. Clean and inhibit mold
Make a very thick paste of water and borax. Coat the area that has mold with this paste. Let it sit and dry overnight, then simply brush off the powder. You can reapply if it didn’t remove all the mold the first time around. This not only kills and removes mold, but inhibits it from growing back.
2. Clean hair brushes and combs
Mix a tablespoon of dishwashing soap (Dawn is super effective) in a bucket, pan, or sink filled with hot water. Add about a ¼ cup of borax and let them soak. When the water has cooled down to warm, swish the brushes and/or combs in the water, rinse, then let dry. This is great for removing oil and hair spray residue.
3. Carpet cleaner
When using those carpet steam cleaning machines, mix ½ cup of borax per gallon of water into the mix. You can also spot clean by using the same ½ cup of borax in a gallon of water and rubbing the spot with a stiff brush. Let dry thoroughly, and then vacuum up the powder.
SEE ALSO: 5 Fantastic Non-Toxic Cleaners that Should be in Your Home
4. Fertilize fruit trees
Sprinkle about one cup of borax around a fully grown fruit tree (or just a few tablespoons around the base of young trees) every three or four years to add an important trace mineral, boron, to the soil. This mineral is super important for fruit and seed development.
5. Insect killer
Keep those annoying water bugs, roaches, or ants away by sprinkling a mixture of equal parts of borax and sugar. You can also put some into some small lids and tuck under sinks or behind water heaters or other places bugs hide. They eat this mixture and the borax dries them up from the inside out.
6. Toilet cleaner
Pour one cup of borax into your toilets before you leave for work (or overnight) and let soak. When you return, clean the bowl. Borax loosens all the hard water deposits and grime making your toilet clean and shiny again.
7. Kills fleas
Sprinkle borax on your dog’s beds, carpets, play areas, almost anywhere you think fleas, or their eggs, might be hatching.
8. Mouse deterrent
Sprinkle borax in place where mice like to hide and along the floors next to the walls. (Mice like running alongside the walls) For some reason, they don’t like the feeling of borax on their feet, so they usually don’t return to that part of the house for a while.
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Ed Jackson
Sep 18, 2014 at 2:40 pm
I mix borax with equal parts cheap canned dog food and jelly in a zipper bag, squeeze it to even consistency, cut a small hole in the corner and drop several piles of it on ant hills. It takes about 3-4 days to kill the queen.