Would you agree that all water is good? No, it could contain salt, sediment, bacteria, sulfur, microbial life, and even toxins. How about if the water was brown, green, orange, or yellow? Unless it was coffee or juice, you would want to avoid drinking odd-colored water.

So, let’s take a little time to consider cleaning products, and ask some questions:

1. Does color really effect how a product cleans?
2. Is the smell or scent a factor in how well a product cleans?
3. Is the bottle a serious factor in the ability of the cleaning product to clean?

You already know the answer to these questions. Color, scent, and packaging have no true value to the ability of a product to clean or sanitize an area. Companies know that eye appeal is very important. Products are designed to impress buyers with package design, attractive colors, and impressive scent.

Multiple experiments show that the very same product used by cleaning workers can be influenced by color and scent. They took the same product and added scent and color to one version, and left the other without color or scent. Guess which only everyone thought did a better job?

Here are five things a truly Green product needs to promote:

1. No need for artificial coloring
2. No need for artificial scent, but consider essential oil if preferred
3. Concentrated ingredients lower the carbon footprint for shipping
4. Avoid shipping products that are 95% water, and look for concentrates
5. Reuse plastic bottles by refilling them from a concentrated source.

When considering a Green product, there is more to process than making a small alteration. Too often, Green product claims are superficial and meaningless. If a certain poison was made 20% less lethal, isn’t it still a poison. If water was 50% pure, would anyone drink it?

Going Green is more of a full embrace than a quick kiss.