All Purpose H Household Cleaner & Pesticides 101

Written by:
Bonnie Edkin
Environmental Chemist/Nutritional Consultant
Edkin Health & Environmental Services

Note:the Manufacturer name has been changed in this post to all purpose H Household cleaner to meet the P& R Guidelines of the manufacturer..

I've used All Purpose H Household cleaner in spray bottles to kill wasps, ants, etc for years. We
live in the woods - and I do mean IN THE WOODS. At various times of the
year, we will see hordes of carpenter ants trekking their way across our
deck and into our home. What do I mean by "hordes?" At times there are so
many you can actually hear them crawling across the floor, countertop, or
whatever surface they are on. Yes, I am serious. If there are enough of
them, you can hear them. Unfortunately, I am speaking from the voice of
experience.

Now, I'm one of those strange people who actually think almost all "bugs"
are kind of cute. So, creepy-crawlers don't normally creep me out, but when
there are this many - well, that's just way to weird for even me. Also,
finding pieces of chewed up wood (from the 2x4s inside our walls) and pieces
of insulation (also from inside the walls) on the floor where the ants have
marched into the house - that's not exactly something that makes me feel
particularly kindly toward the critters. (Carpenter ants can be more
destructive than termites.) So, when these infestations show up from time
to time, I spray the perimeter of the house with a solution of Basic-H. The
next day there are dead ants everywhere. Multitudinous dead ants
everywhere.

So, yes, All Purpose H (and any other liquid cleaner) will kill ants, wasps, etc.
But, Basic-H isn't a poison, so you don't have to worry about absorbing it
into the skin and it having some sort of negative affect on the nervous
system. The mode of action isn't due to some toxic affect on the nervous
system. Basic H doesn't kill ants in the way a typical pesticidal poison
works. Rather, it's a "mechanical" sort of action.

Perhaps a little lesson in pesticides will help. ;-)

There are various methods of killing "bugs." Some pesticides work on the
nervous system by inhibiting enzymes that are involved with slowing down the
nervous system. Enzymes are needed to both "excite" the nervous system and
to calm it down after the cause of the initial "excitement" is over. By
inhibiting the enzymes that calm down the nervous system, these pesticides
put the nervous system into such an excited state that the bug dies. It's
like having a bunch of electrical shorts in the nervous system. (I don't
mean to be gross, but that's why the poor critters twitch so much after
exposure to this kind of pesticide.) The human nervous system is affected
the same way. Many of these pesticides are called "cholinesterase
inhibitors" (because cholinesterase is the enzyme they block). There are
other pesticides that block other enzymes or that cause death from a toxic
exposure in other ways, but the cholinesterase inhibitors are fairly common,
so I'm using them as an example of pesticides that kill by toxic exposure.

Poison isn't the only way to kill bugs. A fly swatter isn't a poison, but
is still can be quite effective at killing flies. (Btw, when using a fly
swatter, it's helpful to know how flies take off. They first fly backward
and then up and forward. So, to improve your hitting average, always plan
to hit the poor guy from behind. You'll get almost 100% this way.) Other
compounds that are considered pesticides work in a "mechanical" sort of way.
For example, there are some products on the market that contain tiny
crystals that scratch the wax-like coating on the hard shell of the insect
when the critter crawls over it. When this coating is scratched, the bug
dehydrates. It can't retain enough water to survive. These products are
officially listed as pesticides, but they are not poisons. You could rub
them all over your body and they won't hurt you one bit. (Well, okay, you
might scratch the skin a bit since they are gritty.)

All Purpose H is not a cholinesterase inhibitor. It works in a mechanical sort of
way - but just the opposite of the gritty crystals that scratch the waxy
coating on the bug to dehydrate it. All Purpose H, like all surfactants, makes
water wetter. That is, it makes water penetrate things better. So, rather
than causing dehydration for ants, etc, it drowns them. It's basically like
holding the bug under water til it drowns.

Actually, any surfactant will do this. That's what makes them effective
cleaners: they help water penetrate the thing you're trying to clean. Lemon
Joy, Dawn, etc - they are all surfactants and will all kill a variety of
"bugs." For example, if a kitten is too young for the vet to recommend a
poison-type flea killer, the vet will sometimes tell you to wash the kitten
with a mild solution of dishwashing liquid to kill the fleas (not automatic
dishwasher detergent, but the stuff that used for washing dishes by hand).
I'm not saying this to promote the use of those products, but rather to
bring up something that is often misunderstood.

Some distributors have
assumed this indicates the dishwashing liquids must be very, very poisonous.
Unfortunately, it backfires when they tell someone they can do the same
thing with All Purpose H. After all, if you tell a customer that the dishwashing
liquids from the grocery store kill fleas and this "proves they are toxic,"
what is that person going to think when you tell them All Purpose H also kills
bugs? They are going to naturally assume All Purpose H is toxic.

So the "if it kills bugs, it must be toxic" concept isn't true (and if you
use it, it will backfire on you at some point). Although All purpose H is not
registered as a pesticide, it will kill many pests. It accomplishes this
thru a "mechanical" sort of action rather than by toxicity.

Burn Testimony.. Using Barefoot All Purpose Household Cleaner

This post has been removed. For more information contact Cindy McAsey 888-272-6701

or

Buy Shaklee Basic H2 Online or Purchase Original Basic H Online

The Safest most effective Mosquito Repellent ever...

Here is a testimony from another "Barefoot Secret" distributor about our wonderful All Purpose H as a safe effective mosquito repellent.

Basic-H as mosquito repellent
By: Brenda Kurz

I have a customer that owns a resturant on a lake. There is a deck
over the lake that is used in the summer. She puts small spray
bottles of full strenght Basic H out on the tables for the customers
to use to provent mosquito bits. It works like a charm. She even
did a test with one of her waitresses. The waitress used off and
Linda used Basic H. Long story short, Basic H won.

I can attest to the fact that our all purpose H works great as a bug repellent too. At our house we keep a 16oz spray bottle filled with 1/3 Basic H, 1/3 white vinegar, !/3 water. We use this on all of our animals and on our selves to keep the bugs away. This mixture also works great to keep itching down if you have already been biten.

This is another story in itself... we just got a new puppy over Memorial day weekend. What a joy she is... she was 6 weeks old yesterday. We have started obedience and crate training her, but I thought it would be nice to turn her loose in a large puppy pen for a couple of hours. Well this puppy pen hadn't been used for awhile and happened to have posion ivy growing in it.

Yep... you guessed it she must have rollled in it the whole time she was out there. Long story short... I've got a posion ivy rash all over the inside of my arms, under my chin, and a little on the tops of my legs. This is not something that is new to me... I've had it before and will probably get it again considering we live in rural america. Our wonderful spray mixture (see above) works great to stop the itch temporarly.

Ok... since I'm on the subject here is what I do for my bouts with posion ivy. As soon as I realize I've got it,
I bath with basic H.
Then I rub all affected areas with calming complex and let dry.
Then I apply mineral masque and leave the area alone! ! ! !

I have learned to be mentally tough when I get posion ivy, because I guess you could say I'm vain and don't want my skin to scar...
As soon as the rash has healed to the point of not itching anymore I apply Enfuselle C&E repair cream after bathing.

This weblog actually ended up being 2 testimony's, but the both involve our barefoot secret all purpose H. If you haven't tried this stuff yet I suggest you give it a try. It's very cost effective way to keep your home chemical free.

Buy Basic H Online HERE