Bernard O'Shea: I used baking soda and vinegar to clean my house: here's what happened

There's one eco-friendly and natural cleaning ingredient that keeps bubbling up repeatedly: baking soda.

Household cleaning products have been used for centuries, with ancient civilisations like the Greeks and Romans using natural ingredients for cleaning. However, I can only imagine scrubbing the steps of the acropolis with sand and ashes was a far cry from the ease of a modern-day power washer. Plato was brilliant but didn't have access to a B&Q.

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The invention of soap in the 19th century revolutionised the cleaning industry. It paved the way for various cleaning products that we use today. However, the main ingredient in many of these products, synthetic chemicals, has raised concerns about their impact on human health and the environment.

Synthetic chemicals such as surfactants, solvents, and disinfectants are found in most household cleaning products and have proven effective at removing dirt and grime. However, they also have significant downsides.

Many of these chemicals are not biodegradable and can persist in the environment for years, causing negative impacts on wildlife and ecosystems. The production and transportation of these chemicals also contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and other forms of pollution.

I'm slightly obsessed with our white countertops and fear a lifelong stain living forever for everyone to see. But it is hard to let go of products that get the job done. Those gleaming white surfaces don't need as much elbow grease when ingredients like benzalkonium chloride and didecyl dimethyl nuzzle out grease-busting power.

However, when it comes to house cleaning, I prefer other activities. Like cliff jumping or asking random strangers to kick me up the arse. Even Marie Kondo recently revealed that she can't keep up with her standards. Hence I have consistently lobbied my wife that the house is "grand", followed by ", Sure, who's going to look anyway?".

There is a constant argument about who does the most cleaning around the house. The only thing I'm sure of is that it's a widespread argument that has existed since the dawn of time. I have visions of Marc Anthony protesting to Cleopatra, "But I emptied the dishwasher yesterday!".

But when it comes to what we use to clean, we have never argued about it. It has yet to come up ever.

There has been a growing interest in eco-friendly and natural cleaning products. These products use natural ingredients like vinegar and lemon juice to clean and disinfect surfaces, reducing the need for harsh chemicals. But there's one ingredient that keeps bubbling up repeatedly: baking soda.

American bakers John Dwight and Austin Church created baking soda as we know it today in the 1840s, revolutionising the baking industry. Its medicinal uses, such as a remedy for heartburn and as a treatment for insect bites, date back centuries. During World War II, the US military used baking soda as a deodoriser for gas masks. But before becoming an eco-housecleaning warrior, please learn from my smelly mistake.

I mixed one part baking soda with two parts vinegar in a bowl. I delightedly watched its bubbling reaction and spread it all over the kitchen. But very quickly, I noticed no matter how hard I scrubbed; I couldn't eliminate the pungent smell of vinegar.

So much so that my wife, who was on a work Zoom call, ran out into the kitchen and whispered-screamed (whisper-screaming is when you want to scream, but the situation does not socially allow it), "Why is there a smell of vinegar everywhere?"

When she saw that I had iced the entire kitchen with my new concoction, she just put her hands to her head and walked away in disgust.

For a whole week, he had to leave the windows open in the kitchen at nearly every opportunity. Our seven-year-old boy summed up the smell when he said: "Daddy has made the house smell like a massive bag of chips".

My issue was two-fold. Firstly I should have added essential oil to counterbalance the smell of the vinegar. Lemon is the most popular, and secondly, you only use the baking soda/vinegar option for very aggressive cleaning, not for a casual wipe-down.

Eventually, I used a mixture of vinegar and water for May to clean the countertops with added drops of lemon oil to negate the smell. But I should have consulted my own personal Plato, my Mother, when she visited and exclaimed perplexingly, "Why don't you just use hot water and a cloth, you fool?" Sometimes sustainability is as simple as that.