I thought it might be worth mentioning something about cleaning products; after all I have streamlined my cleaning using less money, less time, and is more healthy than using the animal-tested alternatives. I use 3 basic household cleaners for the bathroom and kitchen mostly. Let me start with my favorite. Half Hydrogen Peroxide, half water. . .that's it. You just need to find a good spray bottle, pour the mix into it, and now it will be useful as a good disinfectant and cleaner. I use this mixture mostly to spray into my shower once a week b/c I am lazy and don't like scrubbing it very often. You might be surprised at how well it keeps that orange stuff from growing in there. I also use it to spray on door handles when we've been getting sick, or if a nose picker visits my house. The only thing that I have not yet determined is whether it is animal tested. If anyone has any information to offer about this--please let me know!

My next cleaner is pretty simple as well: vinegar and water. O.K., so, vinegar stinks so I don't really leave it like that, but you can if you're short on cash. I buy something called "CitruSolv" from the health food store which is like between $8 and $20 depending on what size you find and where you live. That sounds really expensive, but it is concentrated and the smaller bottle should yield approximately 8-10 cleaner bottles of the stuff, so now it competes with the dollar store price; but it is actually more useful than your average dollar store cleanser b/c at full strength it can scrub off that goo that duct tape leaves behind! So my cleanser actually consists of 50% water, 50% vinegar, and 1 oz of CitruSolv. I use this once and a while to scrub out the shower when tiny amounts of pink/orange begins to grow where the water pools around shampoo bottles. It also does a pretty good job cutting through the soap scum too. I also use this cleaner on the kitchen and bathroom floors, kitchen sink, bathroom sink, and toilet.

My last and most versatile cleaner is Dr. Bronner's Castile soap. This is also a concentrated soap so I use a soap dispenser in my kitchen to mix my watered down versions that are used daily to wipe down the kitchen counter tops.

I always knew that most cleaners were pretty harmful (like bleach which is found in most cleansers), but I had a mental block about changing over, partially b/c I didn't realize that it could be done economically and effectively. If you simply switch to the hydrogen peroxide water alone, I think you will find that you will save money and time.