WORDS BOB SACAMANO PHOTOGRAPHY NICOLA DOBSON
The Good Oil If you’re nothing like us, you’ll be thinking spring cleaning. But all joking aside, it is that time of year when it’s worth thinking about flinging open the windows, spinning some Sinatra and getting your house in order. It’s therapeutic, it means you can finally throw that awesome dinner party you’ve been thinking about, and it’s good for you – blow away the dust, banish the mould, and let in the light. Plus, you always find stuff when you tidy up. Keys! Coins! Earrings and undergarments. But here’s the thing: it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the stuff we use to clean our homes may be just as bad for us as the grime we’re working to get rid of. We’re all concerned about the additives being put into our food, and it’s about time we started to be a bit more aware of the chemicals to be found in the everyday household cleaners we use. There is a reason things like bleach and aerosol cleaners do such a great job, and that is because they are caustic and toxic – do we really need this stuff floating through the air of our homes – and,
equally important, should we be pouring hundreds of thousands of litres of it down our drains every year. It all ends up in the ocean sooner or later, and as an island nation that isn’t good. So, in an effort to find a healthier alternative, Plenty sat down with Nicola Dobson, mother, graphic designer and essential oil guru, to see if essential oils might be the answer. This also meant we could put off actually cleaning and play with some really great smelling little bottles of stuff. It was win-win.
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