I've been looking over all the stuff I've learned about tea tree oil and it's uses over the past year and thought I'd share some of it with you. It has proven to be the best cleaning agent I know of, meeting my personal criteria of effectiveness, price, and safety. With every other cleaner I've tried I was worried about rinsing afterwards, because I didn't want the residue of it to come in contact with my food or my daughter's internal organs (she's mostly over her habit of plastering an open mouth and tongue to every surface she encounters, but the knowledge of what she must be ingesting makes me cringe even now.) The tough and tender spray, I don't worry. I don't have to run her highchair tray through the dishwasher anymore, which never fit right in the dishwasher without it being the only thing in there. This saves the time, money, and both of those are in short supply around here.

The laundry detergents I switched to: to start with, I don't need bleach anymore. Last's week's stain on the Boy's Whites is undetectable to him, although I didn't do anything special in the laundry this time. Not even pretreating. I just used the detergent and the melaleuca equivalent to Clorox 2 and presto! Clean, sparkling Whites. Cheaper too.

The personal care products? Shampoo that lets me wash my hair three times a week instead of every day this month to get rid of the flakiness and general ick that hot weather creates? Shampoo that doubles as an effective body wash on those days when I'm covered in outside dust, bug crap, and the kind of dirt only a small human can instill on it's mother? No more scrubbing of my skin trying to get all that off with three or four applications of heavy soap and a stiff brush. And it smells good. Acne treatment that works in a cream I can apply post-shower? Since I have to use it over most of my torso this is a majorly good thing for me.

Read some of the product literature, and the oil is a natural germicide/anti-bacterial. With the happy note of not killing the skin of the person using the product, just the invisible nasties that it's meant to kill. Talked to my grandmother, who has the dry and cracked skin of her years and medical conditions; it's working better than the uber-expensive stuff her doctor tried to prescribe. Talked to my mother, who has allergies and gets sick from breathing the fumes coming off normal cleaners in a ventilated environment- she doesn't get sick with this.

I guess I'm sold. No. I Know I'm sold. I'm going to keep on with this stuff. Better, cheaper, and safer.