You Only Need These 2 Things to Clean Your Tub

The future and safety of the world has felt bleak recently, at least in my Instagram feed. A former middle school classmate is now an essential oil-selling, non-toxic Internet activist mom. Neutral-hued accounts run by sustainability gurus are telling me to reduce my consumption. The planet is burning; we have less than twelve years to life. All of this is extremely stressful, which could be why the minimalist, sustainable aesthetic has taken off. It evokes a feeling of coziness, and it’s relatively easy and affordable to achieve.

In an effort to minimize, I’ve started cleaning my tub with only two things: Bon Ami powder cleanser and a durable, reusable scrub brush. I had actually used Bon Ami for most of my life — it was there in my cabin at sleepaway camp in 2004, provided to me at my first job as a housekeeper for a small bed and breakfast, and in my first college dorm. At one point I departed from the magical cleaner for promise of better bathroom cleaners, ones that came in squirt bottles with a laundry list of ingredients but millennial-friendly packaging after some soul-searching.

My non-toxic living Instagram community, which I have access to through the Explore page, informs me I don’t need toxic ingredients in my house. At first I wrote them off as kooky, but I’m (almost) all-in on the non-toxic living train. It doesn’t hurt that it’s (in most cases) vastly cheaper to clean without toxins. And thanks to my non-toxic mom Instagram friend, I know about Environmental Working Group, whose evidence-based Guide to Healthy Cleaning gives Bon Ami an “A.”

I’m honestly shocked at how well it cleans without harsh ingredients and chemicals. There was a short time a few years ago when my parents gave me Ka-Boom, the cleans-everything spray (“You don’t need a cabinet full of cleaners,” the description asserts) that comes with a warning label. Ka-Boom’s EWG grade? D.