Bluebird

"Decorate and Bake," they said...

Oona has a birthday coming up, so we spent the day preparing. We cleaned the house, did the laundry and shopped for the meal. Our decorations are homespun and the cake is homemade. We shredded a plastic tablecloth for weatherproof ruffled streamers to hang outside. It's a yellow cake with fudge frosting, which will be made tomorrow. The recipe's from cake expert Jim Dodge and called for eight egg yolks. It's from a cookbook and not online. So sorry! Now I need a nap. Oh wait, it's almost time for dinner.

Ode to a mop and bucket

I am and I am not my mother. She has lots of stuff, but abhors a dirty house. I hate stuff sitting around and have never minded much if things get a little dingy. My mother raised nine children and imprinted all her cleaning mantras, many of them instilled by my Polish grandmother, Hattie. Some are keepers, like line drying sheets. Nothing feels as good as slipping into a bed made up with linens dried in the freshness of the outdoors.  

Other cleaning traits I shrugged off aimlessly, long ago, like mopping the kitchen floor. Je deteste le mop and bucket almost as much as folding underwear and socks. (Like baking cookies, socks and underwear are just so putzy.) I only cave to mopping when things down there get downright sticky. Otherwise, I spot clean as needed. If I hold out long enough, my spouse steps up and give the floors a good scrubbing. 


Every time my mother visits, she offers to wash the floors. I even let her do it once or twice over ten years ago. It seemed to make her happy. Now I'm not talking filthy here, as my floors are regularly vacuumed/swept, but still she notices a lack of mopping. Blame her German/Polish upbringing. She's not coming for Easter but my brother is, and the floors are getting sticky. So mop I must. And next time Mom comes out, she won't need to volunteer. My 7-year old loves to mop. Here she is at my parent's house last summer. This is one trait that must've skipped a generation.

Field Museum wins Best Bathroom

Chicago museum wins America's Best Restroom contest

October 21, 2011 |  6:00 am

 

 

Was it the domed ceilings evoking calming blue skies, the drip-resistant hot-air hand dryers, or the teeny, tiny toilets for tots that put the Field Museum's public restrooms on top? Actually, it was all those things and more, judges said Thursday as they named the Chicago attraction's ground-floor toilets the best in the country.

The restrooms beat out nine other finalists in the 10th annual America's Best Restroom competition, a creation of the Cincinnati-based Cintas Corp., which makes restroom supplies. Each finalist had its special features, including the king of portable toilets: a "regal restroom trailer" that was outfitted to service President Obama and his entourage during the 2009 inauguration. Others offered Italian-style frescoes, toilets with seat-warmers, outdoor showers and lavish artwork.

But what set the Field Museum's men's and women's restrooms apart were their family-oriented features, which range from a nursing room and sofa for mothers; a nanny caddy filled with diapers, wipes and other supplies; and of course those tiny toilets. Judges also noted that the restrooms are cleaned every hour, the better to serve the museum's 3,500 daily visitors.

Finalists were announced in August, and voters went online to select the winner.

The museum, whose current exhibits include one on chocolate and another on Tyrannosaurus rex, is now vaulted into the America's Best Restroom Hall of Fame, alongside such luminaries as the Hermitage Hotel in Nashville, Tenn., and Jungle Jim's International Market in Fairfield, Ohio.

The Field Museum's vice president of finance, Jim Croft, said in a statement that the museum was honored by the award.

"Host to over 1.3 million visitors each year, the museum strives to give visitors the best service and exhibitions; we also feel this about the amenities and we are pleased to offer our guests these unique restrooms," Croft said.

Cintas' senior marketing manager, John Engel, said judges scrutinized the competing restrooms' hygiene, style, public accessibility and usability.

The contest sends the message that "hygiene matters -- for good health and good business," said Engel, noting that "tens of thousands" of people went online to choose each year's big winner. Read more about past contests in this Los Angeles Times story on the event.

Second place went to the Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel in Virginia, cited for its creative use of color. When you turn on the hot water, it flows red. When you turn on the cold water, it flows blue.

-- Tina Susman

Things my sister told me

How many of these did YOU know about? 

A sealed envelope - Put in the freezer for a few hours, then slide a
knife under the flap. The envelope  can then be  resealed.   (hmmmmmm..) 
                                      
============
Use Empty toilet paper roll to store appliance cords It keeps them 
neat  and  you can  write on the roll what appliance it belongs  to.
========== 
For icy door steps in freezing temperatures:  get  warm water and put 
Dawn dish washing liquid in it. Pour it all  over the steps. They won't
 refreeze. (wish I had known  this for the last 40 years!) 
========== 
To remove old wax from a glass candle  holder, put it in the freezer for 
a few hours. Then  take the candle holder out and turn it upside down. The 
wax   will  fall out.
=========== 
Crayon marks on walls? This worked  wonderfully! A damp rag, dipped 
in baking  soda. Comes off  with little effort (elbow grease that is!)..
==========
Permanent marker on appliances/counter tops  (like store receipt
BLUE!) rubbing alcohol on paper  towel.
============ 
Whenever I purchase a box of S.O.S  Pads, I immediately take a pair of
scissors and cut each  pad into halves. After years of having to throw
away rusted  and unused and smelly pads, I finally decided that this  would 
be  much  more economical. Now a box of S.O.S   pads last me indefinitely! 
In fact, I  have noticed  that the scissors get 'sharpened'' this way!
============= 
Blood stains on clothes?  Not  to worry!  Just pour a little hydrogen  
peroxide on  a cloth and proceed to wipe off every drop of blood.    Works 
every time!  (Now, where to put the body?)     LOL 
========== 
Use vertical strokes when washing windows  outside and horizontal 
for  inside   windows.... This way you can tell which side has the  streaks. 
Straight vinegar  will get outside windows really  clean.  Don't wash windows 
on a sunny day.  They will  dry too quickly and will probably streak.   
============ 
Spray a bit of perfume on the light  bulb in any room to create a lovely 
light scent in  each room when the light  is turned  on. 
======== 
Place fabric softener sheets in dresser  drawers and your clothes will smell
 freshly washed  for weeks to come. You can also do this with towels and  linen. 
========= 
Candles will last a lot longer if placed in  the freezer for at least  3
hours prior to burning  .
====== 
To clean artificial flowers, pour  some salt into a paper bag and add the
flowers. Shake vigorously as  the salt will absorb all the dust and dirt
and leave your artificial  flowers looking like new! Works like a  charm! 
============ 
To easily remove burnt on food from your  skillet, simply add a drop or two of dish  soap 
and enough  water to cover bottom of pan, and bring to  a boil on stove  top.

===========
Spray your TUPPERWARE with nonstick  cooking spray before pouring 
in  tomato based  sauces and there won't be any stains.
===========
Wrap  celery in aluminum foil when putting  in the refrigerator and it will keep for  weeks.
============= 
When boiling corn on the cob, add a  pinch of sugar to help bring out the
corn's natural  sweetness
===============
Cure for headaches: Take a lime,  cut it in half, and rub it on your 
forehead.   The  throbbing will go away.
=============

Don't throw out  all that leftover wine: Freeze into ice cubes for   future
use  in casseroles and sauces ........   LEFT OVER WINE, WHAT'S THAT?  :)
=============
To get rid of  itch from mosquito bites, try applying soap on the area  
and  you will experience instant  relief.
============
Ants, ants, ants everywhere ...  Well, they are  said to never cross a chalk  line.. So, 
get your chalk  out and draw a line on the floor or wherever ants tend to march. See for  yourself. 
============ 
Use  air-freshener to clean mirrors. It does a  good job and better still, 
leaves a lovely smell to the  shine.
===========
When you get a  splinter,  reach for the scotch tape before resorting to
tweezers or a needle.  Simply put the scotch tape over the splinter, and
then  pull it  off. Scotch tape removes most splinters painlessly and  easily. 
===== 
Now look what  you can do with Alka Seltzer...... ...  Clean a  toilet.
Drop in two Alka Seltzer tablets, wait twenty minutes, brush  and flush. 
The citric acid and effervescent action clean  vitreous China  .......
========
Clean a  vase.
To remove a stain from the bottom of a glass vase or  cruet, fill with water 
and drop in two Alka Seltzer  tablets.
============= 
Polish  jewelry.
Drop two Alka Seltzer tablets into a glass of  water and immerse the 
jewelry  for two  minutes.
============== 
Clean a thermos  bottle.
Fill the bottle with water, drop in four Alka Seltzer tablets, and let soak 
for an hour (or longer, if  necessary).
=========== 
Unclog a drain.
Clear the sink drain by dropping three Alka Seltzer tablets down the 
drain followed by a cup of  Heinz White Vinegar.. Wait a few  minutes, 
and then run the hot water.
============  ==== 
Do your  friends a favor. Pass this timely (and some  not-so-timely)
information on to a friend!  I just did.  
Makes you wonder about ingesting Alka Seltzer,  doesn't it?

Genderless housework

Irreconcilable differences at the end of the day: Men, women and housework

Lots of time spent in household chores at the end of the day keep both husbands' and wives' cortisol levels high--no surprise here. (Rafael Marchante / Reuters)

By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times/ For the Booster Shots Blog

May 19, 2011, 2:45 p.m.

Men, it's your health and happiness or hers. Women, it's your health and happiness or his. At the end of the day, if there's housework to be done (and there's always housework to be done) and you’re both employed (as almost 52% of married couples with children younger than 6 are), there's only one winner.

Grim, yes. But that is the finding of a study published recently in the Journal of Family Psychology, and conducted by researchers from the University of Southern California. For a week, the study authors intensively tracked levels of the stress hormone cortisol and the daily activities of 30 dual-earner couples in Los Angeles. With a median age of 41, all couples had least one child between 8 and 10 years old living at home.

Cortisol courses through our bodies daily, helping us gather ourselves for physical and mental challenges. It peaks throughout the day, but toward day’s end, it typically begins dropping — reflecting both our decline in activity as we ready for restorative sleep and the process of mentally “ unwinding.”

Those with chronically high cortisol levels — or whose cortisol levels fail to float downward in the evening — not only feel stressed, they also are vulnerable to a wide range of illnesses, both mental and physical. They even tend to die earlier, studies have shown. So linking cortisol levels with married parents’ end-of-day activities, the authors surmise, should tell us a lot about how our home lives influence our health and happiness.

Their findings: Lots of time spent in household chores at the end of the day keep both husbands’ and wives’ cortisol levels high—no surprise here. But on closer inspection, the researchers observed that a married mother's cortisol levels will decline most steeply at the end of the day when her husband pitches in with the housework. Unfortunately, a working man's end-of-day cortisol levels won't likely dip to recovery levels unless he spends more of his end-of-the-day time relaxing and his female partner spends less time relaxing.

“The second shift is alive and well and it has a cost for women,” said Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, an Ohio State University psychologist who studies the effect of relationship on immune function. The second shift, she added is “certainly not” the same for men, much as things have changed in American society. “Women are still picking up the load,” she added, with possible longterm effects on their health.

With an observer in the home and recording activity of men and women at 10-minute intervals, women appeared to spend about 30% of their time engaged in after-work housework, 18.5% in communication and about 10.6% in leisure activity. Mens’ time was apportioned differently, with about 19% of their home-time spent in leisure activity, 20% spent doing housework and 18.8% communicating.

“Husbands’ greater involvement in leisure and less involvement in housework relative to their wives may benefit husbands’ recovery and detract from wives’ recovery after work,” write the authors. And not just marital happiness, but personal health is at stake here.

 "The repercussions of couples' engagement in everyday household tasks may extend beyond arguments about who's doing the dishes and who's flipping through channels," write USC’s Darby E. Saxbe, UCLA psychologist Rena L. Repetti, and Connecticut College anthropologist Anthony P. Graesch.

Michael Graves and his inner femininity

Michael Graves on Objects He Designs for Target, and Himself

By RIMA SUQI

Published: March 30, 2011

Michael Graves may be one of the most prolific designers of our time. The Indianapolis native founded Michael Graves & Associates in Princeton, N.J., in 1964, and has designed more than 350 buildings around the world since. Through Michael Graves Design Group, he has also created more than 2,000 products for companies like Alessi, Steuben, Dansk and Disney. But when it comes to product design, he is probably best known for the work he has done for Target. Mr. Graves was the first well-known designer to create a line for the mass market chain, a relationship that began 15 years ago.

Enlarge This Image

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

Michael Graves holding a citrus juicer he designed for Target. Also with him: a whisk, a potholder, a colander and a can opener.

Enlarge This Image

A broom and dust pan, new at Target.

Enlarge This Image

A twist mop, also at Target.

And although he has been paralyzed from the waist down and in a wheelchair since 2003, the 76-year-old architect shows no signs of stopping. His most recent products for Target, cleaning tools and kitchen accessories, reached stores last week.

What was your impression of Target before you designed for the store?

I had never been in a Target before. They really weren’t in the East. They were a Midwest company based in Minneapolis and had stores all over Minnesota and Wisconsin, and some in Chicago or Illinois. So when they called me, it wasn’t for design of objects for the store. It was, in fact, for the design of the scaffolding for the Washington Monument. They were paying for the restoration.

How did scaffolding lead to a line of products?

They asked me to lunch and said, “We’ve been knocking you off for 20 years,” and said, “Maybe you’d like to come and try designing for us, if we can keep the price at a Target range.” So we designed half a dozen things for them, and they liked it so much they said, “Well, let’s keep going.”

Were you worried it would hurt your reputation?

Just the opposite. It was my hope to do that. I had been designing for Alessi and Swid Powell and Steuben and high-end people, and people always complained, “Michael, we’d love to buy your stuff, but it’s too expensive.” I always wanted to do what Josef Hoffmann, Wiener Werkstätte and the Bauhaus wanted to do, which they never got to do because they designed in a craft mode. We have behind us all this mass production, so why not take advantage and bring the price down for everybody? It was Target who called it the “democratization of design.” I figured, if it’s going to get designed, let’s do it well. So that’s what we did, and I’m happy about it.

The other part implied in your question is, Would you take a certain buffeting from the press or colleagues? And at the beginning there were snide remarks. I remember being at a black-tie dinner, which was a roast for someone else, and my designing for Target came up. I laughed, but I thought to myself, “It won’t be long until you’re doing that, too.”

Do you live with your own stuff?

I do. My kitchen looks like Target and Alessi.

So now you must have a consumer relationship with Target.

You mean do I buy stuff there? Oh yeah. We’ve got one on either side of Princeton. When it first opened, I’d tell the people in Minneapolis that I can’t get out of there without spending $200. But I was buying my own things then.

You had to buy your own things?

Yeah, I got a discount, but I bought my own things. I got 10 percent off.

But now we have things that we have to go to Target for. Like Legos: I have an 8-year-old son, so it’s off to Target to get the new Lego.

I heard cleaning products were tested in your home.

That’s true, it’s not a ploy. I came home to change clothes and get ready for a meeting in New York, and there were about a dozen people in my kitchen scrubbing my floor.

Do you clean?

I don’t clean now, because I’m paralyzed. But let me tell you, I would clean. I cleaned and I ironed. It’s my inner femininity. I remember bringing guests through my house, and Alex Lee, who used to work with me but is now with Oxo, was there. He said: “Michael, your bed is made. Did your maid come in this morning?” And I said, “Alex, I make my own bed.”

Was cleaning a Zen thing for you?

No, I’m neat, but I’m not like Richard Meier, who is really tidy.

I don’t think I’ve ever met a messy architect.

It’s in our DNA to keep it clean.

Can you talk a little about why you use certain colors in your products?

It’s nothing new. It’s from the Renaissance. I lived in Rome for a couple years, so all that stuff affected me. We use blue on the handle of the Alessi kettle. Blue is cool, so you’re supposed to think that it’s not hot. And the bird is red: you’re supposed to think to be careful to remove the bird.

And the new cleaning products are blue.

That’s an interesting story. When we started with Target we had a blue box that all our decorative accessories were packaged in, and buyers from Target would say, “Blue is a killer, it will never sell.” And if you look at Target now, there is so much blue it makes me smile.

What is it about blue?

I like it. I also like green. In fact, I used a kind of gray-green early on in my practice for painting steel, to make it look more like it had a kind of patina to it, like copper and bronze and so on. The color I used was a Benjamin Moore color called 2012. My then-young daughter started calling me 2012 — it was my nickname.

Is there anything positive about being in a wheelchair?

Two things for me: One, that I realize how bad the health-care situation is for people, and being a designer I can do what I can do relative to that industry to make it better. So that wouldn’t have happened if this hadn’t happened. I don’t think I’d be in health care unless someone had asked me to do a hospital or a clinic or something. That, and I have more time to paint now.

You’ve also designed products for Stryker medical.

They’re just wonderful. We’re going from one project, to the next, to the next. We’re cleaning up the patient room and ultimately everything you’d expect someone like me to do in a hospital besides technical equipment, as well as the room itself.

Patient rooms are pretty awful — shades of mauve and bad wood.

And beige and beige and beige. I had a woman come to me — she’s a Zen freak and likes rocks — and wants to color my hospital rooms. She said, “I will make it seem like motherhood.” And I kept listening to her, and I said, “What color would you use?” She showed me a palette and asked what I thought. I said, “I think my mother’s womb was not beige.”

That said, I use color. It’s not there to get you well, but make you smile and make you think life is not as bad as that operation you had.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/garden/31qna.html

When the butler did it, really really well

The Butler’s Way: Just So

Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

Christopher Ely, who started working at Buckingham Palace just after his 18th birthday, will soon teach classes at the French Culinary Institute in SoHo.

By MICHAEL WILSON

Published: March 28, 2011

A bed should not be made immediately after one wakes, but rather, left alone, preferably near an open window, to allow the sleeper’s perspiration to evaporate.

Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

In Mr. Ely’s Laundry Essentials class, students can expect two days on ironing and steaming. He believes it is not possible to properly press a man’s shirt in less than 20 minutes. “Ironing, it’s an art, and I think it’s dying out,” he said.

Christopher Ely at Windsor Castle in June 1983.

Philip Marshall

Christopher Ely with his former employer, the philanthropist Brooke Astor, at Holly Hill, Mrs. Astor's home in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., in 2002.

When laying out an employer’s clothing, drape the trousers over the seat of a chair first, with a dress shirt folded — unbuttoned and with cuff links attached — atop them, and underclothes in turn atop the shirt, in reverse order of the boss’s getting dressed. Shoes, without horns, to the side, socks laid over them. Leave out three ties — the boss’s only choice to make in the morning.

Meat tenderizer is good for blood stains in cotton.

These tricks of the lifetime trade have been rattling around in the shaved head of Christopher Ely, one of New York’s premier butlers, for so long he assumes that everyone knows them. It is a job he has done since his 18th birthday three decades ago, when he was hired on as a footman at Buckingham Palace and stayed just under four years. He is visible in a photograph sitting on a carriage carrying Princess Diana in 1984.

“I’ve stood in front of thousands of people,” the demure Mr. Ely said, “but I’ve been fine with it because I know they’re not looking at me.” But his most recent job ended with everyone looking, after his tenure under Brooke Astor, a job that veered toward the sensational after her death.

He moved to the United States in 1984 and worked for a handful of employers before latching on with Lady Astor on Valentine’s Day 1997. It was a job he kept, but for an 18-month period after he was fired in the midst of a family dispute in 2005, until 2009. Mrs. Astor died in 2007 at the age of 105, and when her son, Anthony D. Marshall, was charged with stealing from his ailing mother, Mr. Ely was a high-profile witness for the prosecution, recalling conversations he had overheard between mother and son. Mr. Marshall was convicted of grand larceny in 2009.

The spotlight shone brightly — too brightly — on the butler. “All of a sudden I have the press chasing me — I freaked,” Mr. Ely said. “I got my picture in the paper, which I didn’t want. But I wasn’t going to cover my head.”

He declined to talk about his relationship with Mrs. Astor, who suffered from Alzheimer’s in her later years, except to say, “She was sort of left to me, and the relationship changed,” and adding: “She was a good person. The whole thing got skewed.”

After falling out of sight at the end of 2009, Mr. Ely is back to work, not in a home, but a school. Mr. Ely will soon begin teaching weeklong classes at the French Culinary Institute.

“I really want to revolutionize service,” Mr. Ely, impeccably dressed and with a British accent and elfish grin, said. “I’m tired of bad service.”

There are three classes, each 25 or 30 hours in length: Culinary Essentials, Essentials of Household Cleaning and Organization, and Laundry Essentials, all taught in the institute’s SoHo classrooms. The tuition is less likely to attract aspiring menservants than a manservant’s employer with an essential checkbook: $1,995 each for the culinary and laundry classes, and $1,750 for the cleaning class, for a total of $5,740. Classes begin in April and May; Mr. Ely is also available for private lessons.

Mr. Ely formulated his curriculum with the institute’s chief, Dorothy Cann Hamilton, mainly by having someone follow him around and take notes while he did his work.

Mr. Ely is a perfectionist who knows the difference between distilled and de-ionized water and their uses on fabrics, and will try a dozen soaps before he finds the right one. As good a place as any to sample his attention to detail is in his way with a steam iron. Students in his laundry class can expect two full days of ironing and steaming lessons from a man who believes a shirt cannot be properly pressed in less than 20 minutes.

“Ironing, it’s an art, and I think it’s dying out,” Mr. Ely said, calling the chore a stress reliever. “It takes half a brain to do it, and the other half is free to roam.”

But for the casual ironer, watching the Iron Chef of ironing — the Iron Ironer — takes the whole brain. He begins with his favorite iron, a Rowenta Pro Master DW-8080, which retails for about $100. He prefers a Teflon ironing board, rather than one with a cloth cover.

He learned to iron from Mark Fairweather, a former footman who worked with Mr. Ely at Buckingham Palace, who himself learned from the great Stanley Ager, author of “The Butler’s Guide to Clothes Care, Managing the Table, Running the Home, and Other Graces,” a bible for traditional butlers since 1981.

Mr. Ely took one of this reporter’s wrinkled shirts and, before he even plugged in the iron, examined a tag in the shirt with a little symbol of an iron with three dots inside. That indicates how much steam to use.

First, he ironed the inside, or back, of the collar, loath to leave one of those thin creases so commonly seen after a shirt’s trip to the cleaner’s. “That’s bad form,” he said, one of many criticisms he has for dry cleaners, who he said are a crutch for New Yorkers and who he flatly accused of ruining clothes. “The most important thing is your collar.”

Next was the button-hole strip of double fabric, and then the button side, face down. “The trick with the buttons, if you want them to lie flat, you lay them on a towel,” he said. The buttons sank into the plush towel, leaving little indentations.

Next, he ironed the tricky shoulder sections, spread over the pointed tip of his board. The iron, hefty in his hand, did more of its share of the work than its $9.99 cousins found in many apartments, with Mr. Ely constantly tugging at the fabric to keep it tight. The best ironing situation, he said, involves plugging in the iron from the ceiling, so the cord stays out of the way.

He paused to lightly spray the shirt from a water bottle. He wears Brooks Brothers shirts, perfect but for the six little pleats — about five too many for Mr. Ely — that adorn the cuffs.

After ironing the cuffs and sleeves, he finished with the front-left panel, the back and the front right. He buttoned and folded the shirt into a tight square that would have looked at home on a department store shelf.

It took about 20 minutes. And it probably looked better than the ironed shirts of a lot of people who pay other people to iron their shirts. And he hopes those people send him their employees.

“I love to hear, ‘I have so-and-so, and he’s really great or she’s really great — but ...” he said. “I want all the ‘buts.’ 

A green clean bathroom regime

 

 

How To Clean Your Bathtub With A Grapefruit & Salt

 

 

When it comes to making your own green cleaners, we like to change things up once in awhile. Sure, you can throw a few things together in a spray bottle and get busy, but once in awhile we like to keep it simple, fresh and smelling oh so amazing! We've been preparing our bathtub for the last month (aka not cleaning it) in preparation for this morning's super simple fruity cleaning trick!

What You Need

Materials
1 Grapefruit
1/4 cup kosher salt

Instructions

1. Halve Grapefruit: 1 medium to large grapefruit will clean your entire bath or shower from top to bottom, including all the fixtures. Simply cut it in half with a knife and you'll be all set.

2. Sprinkle With Salt: Using 1 grapefruit half at a time, sprinkle liberally with salt. Wet your bathtub and sprinkle the remaining salt around the bottom.

3. Take That Scrubbing Bubbles!Scrub your grapefruit around your shower or tub, making sure to slightly "juice" the citrus over each fixture and lifting it every few seconds to pick up fresh salt from around the tub instead of just pushing it around.

4. Rinse: When all is said and done, simply rinse away the pulpy bits and the salt and your shower is as good as new. Not only is it clean, it will smell so fantastic you'll want to curl up in it and read a book. Ok, probably not, but you get the idea!

Additional Notes:
This technique will get thick grime and dirt rings off your shower area and does amazing work on cast iron tubs especially. You can also use this method to clean your sinks, toilets, tile and more — it just depends on how grapefruit crazy you want to get!

 

(Images: Sarah Rae Trover)

 

http://www.re-nest.com/re-nest/how-to/how-to-clean-your-bathtub-with-a-grapefruit-salt-117590