You may have already done the big spring clean in your own home, but what about your relatives? In particular, I’m thinking about your grandparents, parents, uncles and great aunts who may be less able to give their own home a thorough clean this year. When I heard about the #RiseToTheChallenge campaign on social media it really made me think – why not give a little something back to our relatives by helping them out with a mini-makeover? I packed up my dusters and headed straight out this weekend to see what cleaning up I could do for my family.
I wanted my little clean-up to be a surprise so I headed to the shops on Saturday morning before heading to mums to surprise her in the afternoon. I headed to Savers, The Range, Poundland, Superdrug and Sainburys to stock up on plenty of cruelty-free cleaning products and bagged them up as a treat for my mum. She’d recently expressed an interest in my cruelty-free quest and wanted to make the switch over to non-animal-tested products herself. As I’ve mentioned before, chucking out all your old products and replacing them with a whole new cupboard of cruelty-free alternatives just isn’t feasible – it’s wasteful and costs a lot. It’s better to replace each product as it runs out and make the change gradually.
Well, I wanted to give mum a head start (I’m just so pleased she wanted to get involved) and I wanted to take on the #RiseToTheChallenge project and spruce-up her home. Rather than taking all my own cruelty-free household products over to mums (I’ll blog about all my favourite cruelty-free cleaning brands soon, so watch this space!) I decided to pick up a few bottles and give them to mum as a treat, along with a thorough clean-up of her living room. If you’re interested, here are the CF cleaning products I found: Astonish (all around £1 – £1.99), Sainsburys (from just 40p for bleach!), Cussons (£1 for a huge washing up liquid) and Original Source handwash from Poundland. Just goes to show that being kind to animals doesn’t have to cost more – in fact, I’m pretty sure everything I bought costs much less than the branded version.
Of course, what makeover would be complete without a lovely big bouquet of flowers?? I left it to mum to work on displaying them in a vase, which kept her busy while I got on with cleaning her living room. We shook out the rugs, cleaned the wooden floor, dusted, polished and tidied. After a couple of hours the space was looking really clean and smelled fantastic thanks to the fragrant bouquet. We settled down with a cup of tea to admire our big spring clean and I can tell you, mum was delighted!
The #RiseToTheChallenge social media hashtag was created by Fenetic Wellbeing and I’m so pleased that I took on the challenge this weekend. If you’re thinking ‘that name sounds familiar’, Fenetic Wellbeing are the people who sell the fabulous rise and recliner chairs my grandparents have, as well as other household and leisure products. The next time we decorate mum’s living room I’m sure we’ll be picking up some furniture from this company – they make heat and massage chairs too, you know! So not only does mum have a sparkling clean living room now, but she also has a cupboard full of non-animal-tested products to get her started on her cruelty free journey. I hope you’ll also take on the challenge and help a relative to clean up their own home. If you do get involved please tweet your photos to #RiseToTheChallenge or leave me a comment below.
This article is a sponsored collaboration. The pink links in the content indicate a sponsored link or information source. The blog post reflects my own experience and the sponsor hasn’t had any control over my content 🙂
