Home Alternative Green Energy

Instead of looking in the cleaning products aisle for powders, liquids, sprays and pastes to get your home clean, hygienic, smelling nice and looking shiny, why not look in your pantry or kitchen cupboards? Making your own natural home cleaning products is an excellent way to reduce the amount of toxins in your household environment (some proprietary cleaners are really nasty), which is good for the environment, your skin and your health. And natural house cleaning products are often cheaper, too!

Most natural cleaning products use a range of basic ingredients combined in different ways - these are must-haves on your shopping list, and not just because you can scrub up your house with them. Some of them you can eat. Essential oils are other common ingredients listed in recipes for natural cleaners. While these are often included for their pleasant scent, they also have disinfectant and antiseptic properties. Recipes often list specific essential oils, but feel free to mix and match as you need - often, one fresh-smelling essential oil with antiseptic properties (e.g. pine or lemon) can be substituted for another (lavender or eucalyptus). Natural cleaning products often call for soap or soap flakes. If you can't find pure soap flakes in your supermarket, you can make your own by grating a bar of cheap soap with as little extra this and that (e.g. fragrance) as possible - or even try making your own. Alternatively, you can try the penny-pinching method of saving thin sl!

ivers of bar soap and melting or grating these to make your own cleaning products.

Some basic recipes:

General cleaning paste (non-scratching):

* 1 cup soap flakes

* 2 cups powdered chalk or diatomaceous earth (try a sports shop - chalk is used by gymnasts and diatomaceous earth is used in swimming pool filters)

*1 cup bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

* 6 T glycerine.

Pulverise the soap flakes to powder in a blender or with a pestle and mortar. Mix in the baking soda and chalk, then add in the glycerine to make a thick paste. It won't look pretty, but it does a great job. Store in a wide screw-top jar to keep it from drying out.

Glass cleaner:

* 1 cup vinegar

* 1 cup methylated spirits, isopropyl alcohol or strong spirits (e.g. vodka)

* 1 t lavender essential oil

Pour all ingredients into a pump-action spray dispenser. Shake together for a minute or so. This can be used straight away, or it can be left to sit for a week to allow the essential oil to blend thoroughly with the alcohol and vinegar. Spray onto glass and wipe off with a soft lint-free cloth or scrunched up newspaper. The essential oil will help kill mould spores and germs. This mixture can also be used as a disinfectant, as the essential oil and alcohol are strong germ-killers.

Odour-absorbing fridge cleaner:

* 1 cup baking soda

* 10 drops essential oil of your choice (suggested: lemon or grapefruit)

* water to mix Combine the baking soda and the essential oil. Add enough water to make a stiff paste. Rub on with a soft cloth, then rinse off with a clean, damp cloth.

Brass polish:

* 1 cup ordinary table salt

* vinegar to mix

Combine the salt with enough vinegar to make a stiff paste. Coat the brass with the paste, then leave it to work for about five minutes. Rub off with a soft damp cloth, using a little elbow grease as needed.

Fabric softener:

* 1 cup vinegar

* 10 drops essential oil (optional)

Combine the vinegar and essential oil and shake together well. Add to the final rinse. This mixture not only adds a delicate scent to the washing as well as softening the fabric.

Lavender is a traditional scent for adding to laundry and acts as a moth repellent. This recipe will help prevent nappy rash if added to a load of cloth nappies, as the vinegar neutralises the rash-causing ammonia in urine.

Pre-wash soaking treatment

* 2 cups soap flakes

* ½ cup glycerine

* 2 t essential oil of eucalyptus (in this recipe, you cannot substitute this for another type, as eucalyptus oil has stain-removing properties)

* hot water (about 1 ½ litres)

Add the glycerine and soap flakes to the hot water and stir together. When it cools, it will form a grey-white translucent gel. Add the essential oil once the mixture has cooled. Store in a screw-top jar or bottle. To use, add about half a cupful to a bucket of lukewarm water (not hot) and soak stained items overnight. Alternatively, rub a tablespoon or so into the stained area and leave it to work for about an hour before washing the item.

Research suggests that one of the biggest causes of carbon emissions into the environment is the home. Through the use of non-environmentally friendly building materials in the construction of central heating and electrical systems, most homes contribute in a small way to the problem of carbon emissions, which with the total number of homes across the world equates to one big problem. This is why the "go green" movement is catching on with regard to our homes. What this actually means is that sustainable building materials are becoming a popular choice in which to build the homes and "green" energy such as solar or wind power are being used more often.

Using sustainable or green building materials is the major way in which our homes can be made more efficient and with lower emissions. First and foremost using locally sourced materials is the best solution as there are far less fuel and transportation costs involved. Recycled materials in particular are much kinder to the environment. Scrap yards and salvage yards are great places to seek out second hand or recycled items and building materials. 

A large amount of wood gets used in house construction. Instead of using hard wood produced from trees such as oak which take a long time to grow and do not grow again once cut, bamboo can be used. Bamboo is the perfect alternative to hard wood floors for example. Bamboo re-grows quickly once cut and will continue to. It only takes a year to re-grow a harvestable amount. This is one of the best examples of sustainability there is. It is a very dense and durable material that if maintained well will stay strong and looking good in the home for many years. 

Cork is another eco-friendly and sustainable material. It is stripped away from the tree trunks of cork oak trees without having to fell the tree. Like bamboo it keeps growing back year after year. Cork flooring is a great alternative to hard wood floors and looks fantastic too. Cork is also fire-resistant by nature which makes it a truly perfect material to use in a house. When it comes to insulation, make sure you choose a material that is 100% recyclable. There are a few types to choose from so ask at your local building merchants in order to get a recycled variety. 

For heating water, there are a few options to choose from. Using a rayburn cooker or similar is a perfect way to heat your water. A cooker like this works as a cooker, a source of heat and a water boiler all in one, and is fueled by firewood, another sustainable material. This is far better on the environment than oil or gas fueled boilers and keeps the fuel bills at a minimum. Another option is a tankless water heater that switches on only when a hot tap is turned. By not keeping a tank of water heated all day and night, you will save a fortune on fuel bills and reduce your carbon footprint. Solar panels are another good way of creating heat in the home. Although the intial outlay is quite large, running off solar power is good for the environment and means you don't have any more electricity bills.

Sustainable building materials are important if measures against global warming are to be taken. The home is a big cause of carbon emissions so taking measures to reduce the effect on the environment is sensible. By using appropriate, recycled or locally sourced materials you will greatly help towards lowering emissions and keeping your energy bills down. Cavity fire barriers can be fitted too if there is a large amount of wood or other flammable material being used. It's even possible to reduce the number of screws used by selecting certain window fixings.

The home heating system consumes the largest chunk of energy used in your home. Upgrading the heating controls of an average Irish home would save on the average about 20% of it’s annual energy bills. Interestingly some might even find that their upgrading has brought about a saving of up to 30%.

It is not only low energy bills that the heating controls bring about. They will also make your home interior more comfortable and reduce the overall green house gas emissions as well.

How would upgrading controls save energy?

Average home requires hot water for two purposes;

• Space Heating – (Heating home interior)

• Domestic hot water requirement – (for eg. Laundering, dishwashing, bathing, sanitary needs etc.) 

The annual usage patterns of the above two are not the same but individually they follow their own .In most of the existing installations the two requirements are catered to by a single zone which necessitates the operation of the energy consuming heaters and other devices every time even when you need only a hot water bath.

A properly upgraded heating controls system would mean matching your home heating needs schedule with your home hot water usage patterns so that when you need any one of them the other will not have to run. 

What are these much spoken about upgrades?

The use of a commonly adopted single hot water source and zone creates problems in operations such as temperature regulation for applications, proper room temperature regulation, lack of capacity control measures and optimization of operational time etc. leading to wasted energy. Upgrading the system with measures such as the following is therefore currently adopted.

• Zoning the system (at least two zones one for space heating and the other for home hot water needs)

• 7-day Programmable Timers will cater for your daily or weekly usage patterns in the two (or more) different zones.

• Thermostatic regulating valves for space heating terminal devices such as radiators, heat exchangers etc and also the different zones.

• Interlocking the Boiler controls such as cylinder thermostat with heating system controls such as Room Thermostat, TRV etc.

• Variable capacity circulating pumps (generally for high capacity or high end applications)

Generally there are financial grants for the first four upgrades from authorities while the last which is an expensive proposition (rarely used in average homes) is not considered.

LED lights, strip lights in particular, are becoming one of the most popular ways to light a building. Incandescent light bulbs are rarely used anymore as they use excess energy and do not last as long. LED strip lights have virtually replaced previous strip lights altogether in all types of commercial building. Because LED lights are so bright, they can be used as the primary source of lighting in a house or a commercial building. The most recently designed LED lights are far brighter than older ones, so if you want the very best, it is a good idea to purchase new lights altogether rather than reuse older products. 

LED strip lights can be used in pairs or even in triplets. By pairing them up in this way the light given off is far brighter and more powerful. This would be suitable in a factory environment for example where excellent lighting is necessary so workers can see clearly what they are doing. Be aware however that too many LED strip lights close together can produce a large quantity of heat, and this heat can destroy the lights themselves and therefore dramatically cut their life span. They are available in a variety of colours too. If you have a shop or a restaurant then having a variety of colours can add real style and texture into your building. A unique and exciting lighting scheme doesn't just look good, but it also encourages your customers to spend more. Coloured LED lights could help make your profits soar! If you wanted to be really creative you could even combine colours in a small area. This type of lighting would work particularly well in clothes shops or furnitureshops where lighting plays such an important role in how products look. The better a shop looks the more likely customers are going to spend money.

Research has shown that lighting can affect people's moods, so business owners everywhere should take notice of this and apply an appropriate lighting scheme. Factories and offices need extremely bright lights which not only helps stimulate the mind but also keeps seasonal affective disorder at bay for the employees. This makes LED lights the perfect solution in factories, warehouses and offices therefore. Restaurants looking to appeal to couples on romantic dates should have a dimly lit area to encourage more spending on drinks such as cocktails. Dimmer switches in restaurants are particularly worthwhile so the lighting can get even darker throughout the night. LED lights are available with dimmer switches so this is easy to do. 

LED lights are much more cost effective than other types of lighting. The upfront cost is a little higher, however the lights last up to 10 times longer than traditional bulbs. This adds up to a massive saving. Furthermore they use a lot less energy when they are in use, and this means that electricity bills are kept at an absolute minimum. In this day and age, saving money on fuel and electricity is extremely important. Few business owners can afford to spend much on utility bills. The low energy nature also means they are a friend and not an enemy to the environment. If everyone in commercial buildings and houses adopted LED lighting as their own, then emissions would be dramatically cut around the world.

LED strip lights and other energy saving light bulbs are becoming more and more popular in offices and homes across the world. Being better value for money than traditional bulbs and being kinder on the environment too makes them a tempting solution to light a building. They are available in different sizes, colours and styles so all types of building can benefit. For the greatest selection of lighting supplies to choose from, search online today.

Is double glazing really all that everyone thinks when it comes to ensuring that your home is protected from the elements? Also does it really work at keeping all the heat in your home?

We keep on hearing the term carbon neutral in the press and media but what is it that this term actually means? And how do we go about to become carbon neutral?

The term ‘carbon neutral’ has really replaced the term carbon offset. It actually means to balance the overall amount of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere, by calculating how much carbon dioxide is being emitted from an activity and reducing the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide in another activity. Therefore, by installing double glazing into your home you are preventing carbon dioxide from being emitted into the atmosphere which is off setting the carbon dioxide that you are using in order to heat your home in the first place.

The windows in your home have a major impact on the energy efficiency of the house. Poorly designed windows make your home too hot or too cold. If designed correctly, they’ll help maintain year-round comfort, reducing or eliminating the need for artificial heating and cooling.

Windows in a typical insulated home account for more heat gain or loss than any other element in the house. In summer heat gain through an un-shaded window can be 100 times greater than through the same area of insulated wall. One square meter of ordinary glass can let in as much heat as would be produced by a single bar radiator. In winter, heat lost through a window can be ten times more than through the same area of insulated wall. Ordinary single glazed windows offer little resistance to heat flow. Double glazed windows provide additional thermal resistance due the sealed space in between the two panes of glass. This makes the windows conduct less heat and therefore they keep more of the heat in the building rather than letting it seep out into the outside world.

Being carbon neutral is not a fashion thing it is something that everyone is going to have to accept if we are to keep the planet alive. Before the industrial revolution carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were consistently between 260 and 280 parts per million [ppm]. Since the industrial revolution human society has become increasingly dependent on fossil fuels and as a result human activities have increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to more than 380ppm.

As our homes are responsible for a large proportion of the UK's overall carbon dioxide emissions - having a direct impact on the acceleration of climate change - it is important to consider green and environmentally friendly features when look at improving your home.

If you take a trip to the local supermarket, you’re bound to find a huge range of domestic cleaning products. Sprays for this, polish for that, cream for the other thing. It’s easy to buy bottle after bottle of specialist stuff and spend a small fortune.

Does it have to be this hard? Do you really need one product for your toilet, one for your kitchen bench, another for the refrigerator, another for the shower walls, another for the… Well, you get the idea! But it doesn’t have to be that way at all. All you need is a few basics and you can make your own.

One of the real benefits of making your own cleansers is that home-made ones are usually gentler on the environment and much less toxic. Some of them are even edible, though not particularly palatable. And they do a pretty good job of round-the-house cleaning, even if they do need a touch more elbow grease to work. Mentally replace “elbow grease” with “burning calories” and you’ll find these dirty jobs are a lot easier to face up to.

Basic ingredients you will need for making your own cleaners are probably already in your kitchen or bathroom cupboards. Baking soda and vinegar make excellent cleaners. So do lemons, but cleaning things with lemons can be a bit expensive unless you have your own lemon tree that produces prolifically. Toothpaste is another handy ingredient, as is dishwashing liquid (not the sort you put in dishwashers, but the sort you do dishes in the sink with). Biological washing powder is another very handy basic cleaner.

Baking soda is by far the most versatile of these cleaners. It doesn’t scratch delicate surfaces but it busts off the grime. It also absorbs smells somewhat in a refrigerator. Baking soda is perfect for washing down whiteware and cleaning the inside of the fridge. While I have heard that a very thick paste of baking soda can be used for cleaning the inside of the oven, I have never put this one to the test, so I can’t vouch for it. But you may be in luck.

Vinegar is an excellent cleanser for people in hard water areas. As it is an acid (and so is lemon juice, which can be used in the same way), it reacts with that annoying soap scum that has a tendency to stick to the side of sinks. In my experience, what doesn’t yield to baking soda will usually yield to vinegar – and you get a very satisfying fizz when baking soda and vinegar mix. Dilute vinegar works pretty well for windows and doesn’t leave streaks or residue. You can also use it as a fabric softener. My husband’s grandmother also recommended boiling vinegar in a saucepan to deter flies. It works. 

Biological washing powder is quite harsh and should be handled with gloves, but it is useful in many more places than just the washing machine. To clean a really grubby bath, fill the bath with water and put a cup or so of biological washing powder in. Leave it overnight and drain in the morning. The enzymes will have done their work. This also works for burnt-on crud on pots and pans if you accidentally left something on the stove for too long.

Toothpaste is a very effective cleanser but should really only be used for smaller areas, as cleaning larger things such as whiteware with toothpaste could become expensive. Having said that, most of us could claim to use toothpaste to clean bits of the vanity unit and bathroom taps, as toothpaste smears are one source of the grubbiness in this area (or is it just my kids who get it all over the place?). Jewellery (especially diamonds) respond well to being cleaned with toothpaste, as it is gentle and leaves no residue (use a soft toothbrush for cleaning jewellery with toothpaste to avoid scratches). Toothpaste also helps to get scribbles of ballpoint pen off wallpaper. 

Dishwashing liquid can be used for cleaning more than just the dishes. It’s great for mopping floors with. Use in a bucket of water at about the same concentration you’d use for doing the dishes, or maybe a bit stronger for really grubby floors. You can also use this for glassware, although it can leave a few bluish streaks – but seeing as it gets rid of handprints and flyspots and doesn’t have those unpleasant fumes that you get with commercial window cleaners.

Specialty commercial green cleaning offered by professional janitorial services in Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas, Tampa provide a lot of benefits that any business concern can profit from.

When doing specialty commercial green cleaning, janitorial services use products, equipment and cleaning techniques that are environmentally friendly and non-toxic. This means they are also safe for the health of all building occupants. Such environmentally friendly and non-toxic products, equipment and cleaning techniques do not pollute the air and help keep the indoor air quality (IAQ) at optimum levels.

By not using anything with dangerous volatile organic compounds (VOC) and fluorocarbons in their products and equipment, specialty commercial green cleaning services maintain the quality of indoor air and reduce the levels of all other allergens in the indoor environment. This reduces the incidence of respiratory conditions like asthma and allergies in the work force. Commonly known triggers of these health conditions are toxic cleaning products; allergens such as tobacco smoke, dust mites, animal dander, cockroaches, molds and pollens; paint fumes and other chemicals from bleach, carpet cleaners, aerosols, air fresheners and ammonia. Since respiratory conditions cause a large number of absences among personnel, minimizing triggers will surely boost productivity.

Complying with green standards through specialty commercial green cleaning services could also earn LEED credits for a business concern, thereby improving its reputation and brand equity in the arena of corporate social responsibility. Building ratings for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) are issued by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Buildings that comply with such standards are considered “green buildings” or “high performance” buildings. They are characterized by the maximized use of recycling and the significant avoidance of the use of toxic materials that require special disposal.

Business concerns that use specialty commercial green cleaning services also benefit from cost cutting and savings. For one, specialty commercial green cleaning services use environmentally friendly cleaning equipment. This automatically means they are energy efficient and will contribute to the lowering of energy costs. The use of such equipment also includes preventive maintenance which significantly reduces downtime. Furthermore, specialty commercial green cleaning services contribute to the lowering of costs in relation to health care, sick leaves and productivity by protecting the health of both the work force and management. In keeping the building not only sanitary but also healthy and safe, overall productivity is raised along with the company’s return on investment (ROI).

Specialty commercial green cleaning services cover the complete cleaning of office buildings and commercial areas. This includes wood floor cleaning, which involves stripping and waxing floors. It also includes resilient floor cleaning and commercial carpet cleaning which involves soil containment, regular vacuuming with a “green” vacuum cleaner, professional removal of spots and stains, and scheduled deep cleaning and freshening of carpet appearance. In medical facilities, specialty commercial green cleaning services include medical cling cleaning.

It seems like it would actually be counterproductive for any business concern not to hire professional janitorial services that provide specialty commercial green cleaning in Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas, Tampa.

Recycling things is important to cut down the waste, but it’s only one of the three Rs of living sustainably. The other two are Reducing and Reusing. Reusing can often take a bit of creativity and lateral thinking. But if you don’t have a Depression/WWII era granny to get ideas for reusing things from, then try these to start you off:

* Pizza boxes (for large pizzas) are the perfect size for fitting A4 papers and they stack together easily. Blot the grease out and use them as a filing system. They’re easy to label, too. Cover them with newspaper or old wrapping paper if you don’t want the number of your local pizza joint staring you in the face. They stack much better than arch lever files.

* Ice cream containers are ideal for freezing soups and casseroles for later use, and also for freezing a surplus of stewed fruit. They also are something of a staple at many schools for holding crayons and other large groups of bits (counters, rubber bands, milk tokens, drawing pins). One-litre yoghurt pottles have the same uses.

* Thick cardboard of any type can be used to protect CD(-ROMs) in the post instead of bubble wrap. Keep a small supply on hand, but don’t hoard it – it can build up to excess if you’re not careful.

* Large clear plastic bottles. If you don’t want to re-use these as drink bottles (if you’re going out for a long time, then they take a lot more water than the little sip-top bottles), then try (a) cutting the top off just below the neck (at the “shoulders”) and using this top as a funnel for changing the oil or for children to play with in a sandpit or the bath; (b) cutting the top off at the shoulders and using the bottom as a mini-cloche for giving young plants a head start in early spring.

* Bottles with handles: cut them on the diagonal and use them as scoops for sugar, flour, etc.

* Old sheets and towels. Rip or cut them up and use them for dishcloths or anywhere you’d use a tissue (apart from as a handkerchief in public, of course – but for removing makeup, they’re great). You can also use them as cloths for domestic cleaning and polishing.

* Screw-top jars (glass or plastic). Wash them out and keep them for your own home-made jams and pickles. Or for storing things like cornflour and cocoa. Or for storing home-made natural cleaning products and bath salts.

* Zip-lock bags. Does anyone throw these useful things away? Use them for smaller batches of frozen food, and for school lunches.

* Rubber gloves. Once they’ve got holes in the fingers, cut the wrist parts up for extra thick, strong rubber bands.

The big thing to remember when you are keeping things to reuse is not to be a hoarder. Only keep as much as you will actually need. If you have already got scoops for your sugar, your salt, your flour and the cat kibble, then don’t make another scoop. If your freezer is full up with frozen goods, don’t hoard any more containers for freezing. Just recycle the items instead!

If you are lucky enough to get hold of either The Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge printed in the USA in 1891, or else the selection of advice and advice collected and edited from this in Remedies, Potions and Razzmatazz by Don Roberts, you are in for a treat of advice and amusement. For those who aren’t so lucky to find these books, here is a summary of some household tips from 1891.

Kitchens have long been the centre of the home, and that was no exception in 1891. While their kitchens weren’t quite as full of electric gadgets, chrome or even linoleum (hard oiled wood was the recommended flooring in kitchens), they still knew the importance of keeping kitchens and kitchen implements clean and sparkling. Here’s some of the ways they did it:

• To prevent tea-kettles becoming encrusted inside, keep an oyster shell inside it. The theory is that the shell will attract all the particles so the particles don’t end up coating the kettle. To clean the outside (presumably) of a tea kettle, wipe it with kerosene (and presumably rinse the kerosene off afterwards).

• Make a special silver soap for cleaning silver articles by mixing half a pound of soap, 3T of turpentine (preferably the plant-sourced type) and half a glass of water. After boiling this for ten minutes, add 6T of “spirits of hartshorn” (known today as ammonium carbonate). This soapy, bubbly liquid should be used to wash silver items.

• Brass kettles can be cleaned with a mixture of salt and vinegar rubbed on as a paste then wiped off.

• For steel and iron that isn’t stainless, you can keep it from rusting by a good wipe with kerosene before storing it. This technique was not only recommended for stoves that were not going to be used over summer (we tend to forget nowadays what having a coal-fired stove in the kitchen would have been like during summer heat), and also for farm/garden implements that are going to be stored unused for a while.

• The standard method of cleaning out bottles by swirling lead shot around inside them was not recommended, because of the risk of lead poisoning, especially if one of the pellets got stuck inside a bottle or decanter that would be used for alcoholic drinks that could dissolve the lead. Instead, warm water and wood ash was recommended as the mixture to shake around inside a bottle before storing its upside down and open before use, or else chopped raw potato and water. Modern people can still try the first trick, but substituting steel shot or (grease-free) ball bearings instead of lead.

• Most modern people would prefer to stay away from the advice given for cleaning porcelain china: strong acid, either sulphuric or hydrochloric. While strong acids and alkalis are used to scour milking machines in commercial dairy operations, most households would prefer to avoid these dangerous and corrosive chemicals – although dishwasher powder is pretty rough. It’s better to stick to hot soapy water.

• To clean glass, the book suggests that cold water is better for cleaning glassware, as it gives a more sparkling finish.

• Knives that are going to be stored away for some time should be cleaned and dried thoroughly, then dusted with wood ash and rolled up in paper for storage.

• The idea of reusing and recycling isn’t new. The book suggests several kitchen uses for used paper. The first of these is to use it for window cleaning and glass cleaning, and to buff up and dry cutlery (sounds like paper towels – but who says you can’t use old newspaper for this?). Brown paper is ideal to wrap around pickle and jam jars, or for sealing the tops. The other uses for old, used papers in the book are a bit more out of the ordinary, such as using it as carpet underlay, or even making a type of flooring by gluing many newspapers together onto the floor then wallpapering over the top. Reminiscent of the stereotype of a tramp on a park bench, the book also suggests using paper as an extra layer of bedding during winter, and putting a folded newspaper down your front when riding in cold windy weather (presumably, they meant putting newspaper down your waistcoat while riding a horse, but it would work inside a jacket while biking, too).

While it isn’t so much a kitchen cleaning tip, the recipe given for making your own chewing gum is one that needs passing. The mixture calls for 2 oz “balsam of tolu” (a type of balsam of Peru with vanilla and cinnamon flavours), 1 oz white sugar and 3 oz oatmeal. Soften the balsam in water, then mix the other ingredients in. Shape and roll in icing sugar. Worth a try if you can get balsam of tolu or balsam of Peru.