Cleaning green is very clean. I have been Green cleaning for years now and actually am a "Green" cleaning lady.I have not been I have not had a cold or been sick for 4 years. You have to start by accepting that you are a living organism and you need Good germs around to stay healthy. By using cleaners that kill everything you are actually putting your natural resistance to bad germs on the line. You just killed all the germs that are you allies. There are many plants like Tea Tree around that have disinfecting properties just like chlorine, that your body can live in harmony with. I feel that this idea of no germs has a lot to do with why people in 1st world countries have developed allergies to peanuts, fragrance and so on. You can try Tea Tree Oil, Vinegar as you mentioned or try the 7th Generation products. So be bold and embrace the "Green" way of clean.

I totally agree with Judith. I feel that people that are obsessed with killing "99.9 percent of germs" don't realize that they are more exposed to germs than other people. Unfortunately when you get rid of so many germs you also kill the good ones. So i would just suggest you clean green and embrace good germs which will actually help you stay healthier.

I agree with you both. When we remove so many "harmful" organisms from our environment, we are more susceptible to developing allergies, and diseases caused by miccrogranisms that we might otherwise develop natural immunity to.

I slightly disagree with all of the remarks thus far. I have asthma and do need to keep my place as clean as possible. While I understand that some in the industry believe that keeping your home too clean can make people more susceptible to acquiring allergies - of which I have many - it was my understanding that that theory only applied to young children. I could be wrong.

Nonetheless, I do clean "green"; however, I've noticed that a couple of days after I've done my weekend apartment cleaning (and still wiping the counters every night with "green" cleaners), the counters and kitchen in general seems to be somewhat "germy" for lack of a better word. it's not as clean as it would be had I used a traditional cleaner, which incidentaly I avoid because of my asthma.

So I am somewhat concerned about how clean the "green" cleaning products clean surfaces. Seventh Generation's Kitchen Cleaner contains hydrogen peroxide which does disinfect surfaces. But oddly enough this is the one Seventh Generation product that triggers my asthma because of the essential oils contained in it, so I'm now using hydrogen peroxide and vinegar to do kitchen cleaning with so so success thus far.

I know a few people do not appriciate the smell, but if it doesn't irritate your asthma you might want to try it. It has strong disenfecting properties, some people use it on their acne, cuts among other things besides cleaning the house.
If the vinegar isn't working that great alone, use it with baking soda, I've had much better results on tuff stains if you let the two bubble until they neutrilize each other.