Looking for a natural ingredient that can help make your house shine? Try borax powder! Combine it with water to clean everything from your carpets to rusty sinks.
Continue reading to learn more about safe and effective ways to use borax powder in your home.
What Is Borax Powder?
Borax powder, which also goes by the names boron, sodium borate, and sodium tetraborate, is a naturally occurring mineral with a wide range of applications in the home.
Borax is a common by-product of the evaporation of seasonal lakes and can also be produced synthetically.
The ingredient can be added to everything from detergent to drain cleaner as a natural substitute for chemical, store-bought household cleaning products.
Is Borax Safe to Use?
As is the case with all raw ingredients, there are certain protocols you should follow to ensure your safety and protection when using borax powder.
Be sure always to wear safety goggles and rubber gloves when working with borax powder, and wash your skin with soap immediately if unprotected skin does become exposed.
Borax powder can cause serious health problems if ingested and, as such, should be handled with care. If you do consume any of the powder, no matter how small an amount, seek emergency medical advice immediately. Keep the powder well out of reach of children and pets.
Borax vs. Baking Powder as a Cleaner
Borax and baking powder are two popular ingredients in homemade cleaning products. But which is better?
To answer this question, we need to delve into what makes a good cleaning product. Ideally, a cleaning product should be able to work on multiple surfaces, from glass to timber. Otherwise, you will end up having to purchase several products, which is inconvenient and expensive.
It’s important, too, that the ingredients are safe to be used around the home. While borax powder shouldn’t be exposed to the skin or inhaled, it can generally be mixed with other ingredients to form cleaning products.
Finally, the last thing to keep in mind is the smell. The last thing you want is to wash down your surfaces, floors and windows with a product that smells too strong or uninviting. One of the many benefits of making your own cleaning products is that it only takes a few drops of an essential oil, like lemon or peppermint, to bring a fresh and enticing scent to your home.
So, having taken all of this into account, which is better — borax or baking powder?
The two ingredients are quite similar, both being naturally occurring salts. Borax and baking powder are alkaline and abrasive, with borax having a slightly higher pH count of 9 than baking powder’s 8.5.
With that in mind, baking powder is slightly milder and may not work as well on particularly stubborn stains. However, how effective a particular cleaning agent is will really depend on the other ingredients it’s combined with.
Main Uses of Borax Powder
Wondering exactly how you can harness the power of borax powder in your home? Here are a few ideas:
Clean Your Carpets
Borax powder is an excellent way to freshen up carpet, whether you need to remove a stubborn stain or just want to give your living room rug an overhaul.
Using borax for this purpose couldn’t be easier. Simply add half a cup of borax powder to three and a half litres of hot water. Stir through a few drops of your favourite essential oil and clean away!
Always spot-test a new product on an inconspicuous area of your carpet before applying it liberally.
Make Natural Laundry Detergent
Nothing is more frustrating than clothes that emerge from the washing machine with an odd stain or two. All it takes to fix this is half a cup of borax powder, alongside your regular detergent, and you’ll experience whiter whites, reduced soap residue, and neutralised odours.
Clean Cookware
Over time, food stains can embed themselves into cookware and can make your pans and pots look pretty unsightly. A quick way to remedy this is to add half a cup of borax powder to a sink full of warm water. Once the powder has dissolved, let the pans soak for a few minutes before scrubbing the surface.
Clean Your Fridge
Your fridge should be one of the cleanest areas of your kitchen — after all, it’s where you store all your meat, dairy products and fresh food. However, we all know how easy it is for crumbs and spills to build up over time.
A simple solution involves mixing a solution of borax powder and hot water together and using this to clean individual fridge drawers and the interior lining.
You can also add the mixture to a spray bottle and wipe down the outside of your fridge, providing that it’s made from stainless steel.
Clean Your Bathroom
If you’ve only got time to clean one room in your house, make it the bathroom. After all, it’s the place where you go yourself to get clean!
The toilet, sink and mildew-stained tiles can all be attacked using a borax cleaning solution. You might choose to create a hot water and borax powder mix or alternatively combine borax powder and a small amount of lemon juice to make a paste that can remove tough and stubborn stains.
Remove Rust in Your Home
Few things are more irritating than rust-stained surfaces in your home. However, all is not lost. Contrary to popular belief, there are products you can use to help reduce unsightly rust stains, including borax powder.
The simple combination of one part borax powder, two parts warm water and a dash of lemon juice can be used to remove stubborn rust stains to great effect.
Deodorise Linen & Mattresses
A mattress is an expensive investment, and you want to do everything you can to ensure it lasts as long as possible.
If your mattress has stubborn stains that haven’t responded to store-bought cleaning products, consider using borax powder! Simply add a little water to the spot in question and sprinkle some borax powder on top. Rub the powder into the affected area and allow it to dry before suctioning any excess product up with a vacuum.
Unclog Kitchen Drains
Are clogged kitchen drains getting you down? Why not try borax powder?
Simply combine one part borax powder with four parts of hot water and pour it down the sink. Let the mixture sit for 15 minutes before flushing it through with boiling water. Clogged drains be gone!
Shop for Borax Powder at N-Essentials
Convinced of the power of borax powder? The good news is that purchasing the product couldn’t be easier, with N-Essentials stocking packets from 1kg all the way up to bulk sizes.
We’re passionate about providing customers with all the raw ingredients they need to create their very own household products. Whether you’re shopping for borax powder or any other type of raw ingredients, N-Essentials has you covered.
Check out the complete collection online today, and be sure to contact our customer service team if you have any questions.