For those of you who are new to natural housecleaning and looking for some more information and recipes or you have been at it awhile and need some further knowledge, I wanted to highly recommend you check out the following resources. These may very well be available at your local library, but they are very worth having as references in your home, so I recommend purchasing your own copies.
Easy Green Living by Renee Loux – This is my favorite resource on green living and educating yourself on the various harmful and safe replacements for all arenas of your home. It is the ultimate resource! She also supplies an abundant list of recipes for safe household cleaning that are very useful. She also reviews all the popular brands on the market.
Clean House, Clean Planet by Karen Logan – This book focuses specifically on natural housecleaning and addresses every 
chemical and safe homemade replacements for your home. I love the wit and charm in this book. Karen makes housecleaning actually sound like fun as you learn to make your own frugal natural substitutes. From natural car wash cleaners to an emergency cleaning kit in your car, Karen Logan thoroughly covers every need you may have!
Home Safe Home by Debra Lynn Dadd – This book is an excellent resource on eliminating toxins from your home. She provides over 400 tips, including do-it-yourself formulas for every area of your home. She compats every chemical with a thorough knowledge of its harmful effects and an easy solution. This book has little pictures and is more textbook in style. This has more educational material than recipes but there as definitely many helpful hints in there. Clean House, Clean Planet has more of the recipes over the educational aspect…so both resources are a great balance!
Green Clean: The Environmentally Sound Way of Cleaning Your Home - A thoroughly current guide to natural and safe housecleaning. She reviews all the standard and eco-friendly brands on the market in addition to various homemade recipes. The author proceeds through every room of your home to supply you with safe solutions and helps you to make a green cleaning plan.
Vinegar: Over 400 Various, Versatile, and Very Good Uses You’ve Probably Never Thought Of by Vicki Lansky- A helpful little guide that supplies you with all the knowledge you need on how and where to use vinegar (the cheapest natural solution out there!) in cleaning your home. I love how this little guide makes natural cleaning so frugal!
Baking Soda: Over 500 Fabulous, Fun, and Frugal Uses You’ve Probably Never Thought Of by Vicki Lansky- I think these two books truly prove that you don’t really need chemicals in your home. These frugal alternatives completely do it all!
Do you have any recommendations?
I recommend Better Basics for the Home by Annie Berthold-Bond. She provides many green cleaning recommendations here:
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/healthy-home/nontoxic-cleaning
I, too, depend on Ellen Sandbeck. Her book has been renamed; it’s no longer Organic Housekeeping but Green Housekeeping.
I loved Organic Housekeeping by Ellen Sandbeck. It was one of the first books I read on how to clean without chemicals and I use a lot of the ideas from it today. It discusses everything including organizing and buying materials for your home.
I will definately read through the Vinegar & Baking Soda books because I love using those products in my home and I’m always excited to hear about a new use for them I haven’t heard of yet.
I would love to learn more about safe cleaning, so if you were to only have one of these books which would you recommend?
I would choose the Clean House, Clean Planet book if you are looking specifically in regards to cleaning naturally, but if you want an all around guide to green living, I would recommend the Easy Green Living.
My best recommendation is a book we always buy for newlyweds! It is by Linda Cobb called “How the Queen Cleans Everything”…and literally EVERYTHING!
It is her 3 books combined into one and it is v. cheap on amazon. It is all about deep & also simple cleaning with things you would have on hand from lemon juice to vinegar & baking soda. She also gives “quick tips” throughout, which I am happy to report my favorite bug spray solution is from it–White Vinegar! It dries within seconds so there is no funky smell and it WORKS WONDERS–esp. me who always has a ton of mosquito bites!
Sarah M
I like the book “Organic Housekeeping” by Ellen Sandbeck. I’ve learned many natural housecleaning tips from her. My favorite was how to clean large wool rugs: take them outside on a snowy day, put them pile side down on clean snow, and walk all over the backside of the rug. The snow works into the pile and helps blot off the dirt, and then you can shake out the rug and let it dry before putting it back in its place. I was amazed to see how well this worked! My living room rug had never looked better.
Green Clean by Mason Hunter and Halpin. This is the book that really got me to “change” my ways