Today I’m going all nostalgic on you and sharing some TV ads from my youth which I bet lots of you of a certain age will remember just as well as I do. The reason I’m sharing them is that I’ve made a batch of my own homemade Shake n Vac and the whole time I was making and using it, I couldn’t help but sing the song.
In fact, aside from the milky way advert with the two cars racing each other, the only other advert I can remember from when I was growing up is the Glade Shake n Vac one. They’re both songs that remind me of watching TV with my Mam and Dad and always make me smile for that reason.
Edited to add: I just remembered the Nescafe adverts too (or at least I think it was Nescafe). Were they the ads that were like a mini soap opera with a blossoming romance over the space of a few years?
What you need to make Homemade Shake n Vac
For this you need some sort of shaker so you can either do what I do and use an empty icing sugar shaker (like this one from Amazon but I bought mine from B&M for 75p), a glass shaker jar of some kind (like this Kilner one) or the cheapest option may be to actually buy a bottle of supermarket own brand shake and vac and reuse that container instead.
- Baking Powder – the amount depends on how big your container is and how much you want to make. Have a look at my notes below to work out how much you’re going to use.
- Your favourite essential oil – again the amount depends on how much you’re making. As a guide, I used about 15 drops in my 250g sized shaker.
**When I make my homemade shake n vac, I build it up in layers for a couple of reasons – (a) so the lovely essential oil smell is distributed evenly through the baking powder and (b) so that I don’t end up with a clump where the essential oils are added that is hard to get rid of. **
**You also need to make sure that you don’t go fill to the top of the container as you’ll want to be able to give the mixture space to move about so you can shake any lumps out.**
- So, with the above points in mind, you should be able to work out roughly how much baking powder you’re going to use for your container.
- Start by adding about a quarter of this amount into your container.
- Add in 3-5 drops of essential oil and give it a vigorous shake.
- Repeat steps 2 and 3 until all of your baking powder is in the container.
- Shake it as hard as you can to try and distribute the essential oils as evenly as possible.
- At this point, I tend to leave it overnight although I’m not sure that’s necessary to be honest. I just like to give it chance to settle and my theory is that this will help the smell intensify but that’s not based on actual science and could totally be me just trying to put off the hoovering for a bit longer.
I give it a good shake before I use it and then just literally shake it over my carpet, leave it for a couple of minutes (some people leave overnight) and then hoover it up.
I should say that you would be best doing a little test on a small corner of your carpet to make sure it works for you – not sure why it wouldn’t unless your hoover isn’t great at picking up but definitely worth a quick test before you do the whole room. I have a Shark which is pretty much the best hoover we’ve ever had so it picks up anything and everything with no problems.
I find my homemade shake n vac leaves the floor smelling fresher which is something I love considering I have two dogs!
(PS) As always, be careful spraying when using Essential Oils. This post shares a bit of information about what you should know before using essential oils.
And just as a little treat for you, here’s the original advert for the Glade Shake n Vac:
And my all time favourite advert, the original version of the Milky Way ad that I remember so well:
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