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Title: Better Basics for the Home : Simple Solutions for Less Toxic Living by Annie Berthold-Bond ISBN: 0-609-80325-5 Publisher: Three Rivers Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.69 (16 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Annie does it again
Comment: I've been a fan of Annie Berthold-Bond ever since picking up the Green Kitchen Handbook. Better Basics for the Home is an extensive handbook of recipes ranging from cleaning products to spa recipes to items you can give as gifts. The appendix of suppliers is invaluable, as is the information on essential oils and body product oils (like walnut, sesame, olive, etc.) A great book for beginners and long-time product makers.
Rating: 4
Summary: Really Useful Book
Comment: I liked this book a lot. It is much, much better than "Clean and Green" and covers all sorts of cleaning issues. I rated this only 4 stars for a couple of reasons. In one place she says that she doesn't use borax in her body care recipes because some may be contaminated with arsenic where it is mined, but it (borax) is listed as an ingredient in her shaving cream recipes. Well? Where do you get pure borax if you can't use the laundry borax? Secondly, her suppliers list is not the greatest. Suppliers could and should have been listed at the end of each chapter as well. It is still a good reference book for any home library.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great intro to green cleaning, easy recipes, some caution
Comment: When I first bought this book it was very hard to put down. Most of the recipes are very easy to follow and are inexpensive. My favorite recipe for "soft scrubber" contains ingredients that I already add to my bathwater anyway, so it's nice to take a bath without worrying about any leftover chemical residue lingering in the tub with you. Another plus is the gentle, caring manner in which it's written. The author explains the benefits of going green without coming across as condescending or judgmental.
Keeping in mind that I think this is a wonderful book, and well worth the cost, there are a few things I'd like to point out. I found that a lot of the skincare recipes were geared for people with dry skin. This is understandable considering the author's dry/sensitive skin, but I wanted to let other readers know to expect this. I tried many of the basic lotion, cream, and soap formulas and found that many of them felt way too greasy for my skin-especially if they contained beeswax. There is a small section with recipes for people with oily skin. That was helpful, but the skincare recipes in general are probably a little more suited for dry skin.
I also found that some of the yields seem a little off. (This is more so for the skincare recipes than the cleaning recipes.) I follow all of the instructions very carefully, but still end up with yields that are sometimes significantly off. You can tell just by reading some of the recipes that it's unlikely they could yield what they say. Also, some of the recipes for the cleaning products seemed a little repetitive. (Not a significant enough difference between some of them to warrant separate recipes.)
One very important point that needs to be mentioned is that in the instructions for soapmaking, the author suggests adding water to the container after the lye. Almost every soapmaking resource I've used suggests just the opposite. (Doing this step improperly can cause an almost volcano-like reaction.) While I'm very grateful that this book introduced me to soapmaking, I would strongly suggest that beginners read a book dedicated to soapmaking rather than start with the soap recipe in this book. There are a few helpful pieces of information missing from her soapmaking instructions.
Lastly, a lot of these recipes work great and are wonderful replacements for the commercial items you buy in stores. However, a few of them simply do not work as well no matter how much I want them to. I prefer to use natural methods anyway, but there may be some readers who will still want to resort to an occasional commercial cleaner from time to time. It's still such a payoff to use as many of these natural recipes as you see fit. Great book overall!
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