Can someone please tell where in Basel (I live close to the main Bahnhof) I can buy some Baking Soda (NOT Baking Powder, I know this is easily obtained)???
So funny! Had exactly the same issue last week... my dreadful german skills totally bemused the co op cashier!! She ended up giving me a bag of breadcrumbs!!
I'm looking for HUGE amounts of baking soda. well not huge, but certainly more than 3 packets I heard it's a great cleaner and since the drain cleaner i've been using doesn't seem to work well, and is environmentally-unfriendly, i wanted to give the baking soda+ vinegar solution a shot. But i've not been able to find anything more than the 3 measley packets at Coop! Does anyone know where i can get a bucket of it for cleaning purposes (not food grade)?
In this thread ( All Purpose Flour equivalant ), the suggestion is made to visit the chemist (pharmacist / apothecary) to get large quantities of baking soda. They'll probably more familiar with calling it "bicarbonate of soda" or "natron" as the packets for baking are labeled.
Drugstores here are one of the great things about Switzerland. Almost anything you can dream of can be had there. Something like sodium bicarbonate should be in stock, other things like stearic acid or powdered Prussian Blue might have to be ordered.
My experience had been that they get a kick out of filling an order like this. And it's usually cheaper than you'd expect.
Thanks everyone for all your helpful replies! I'm now ready to go into a drugstore (i hope by that you mean an apotheke?) and ask for sodium bicarbonate! Hope they don't look at me strangely hehe...
I think it's the Drogerie not the Apotheke that sell it. I also need some. I bought a big box back from Australia, cause i love cleaning with it and it makes cakes etc, rise up like a dream. Good luck!
I am getting a bit concerned - the type of soda crystals used for clearing drains (caustic) is not to be confused with bicarbonate of soda that is used to make buns rise!
I never heard about caustic soda (NaOH) used to clean the drains. It's... well... too caustic for that. They were referring to more generic soda with vinegar, the word "caustic" I believe, was used in mistake.
Baking Soda is Bicarbonate of Soda, as per the contents listing. I used to buy it by the 1/2 kilo in Ireland, cheap. In London in those 100 gram little plastic tubs, 100 gram 60pence.
I am sure have seen it in the supermarkets here, but dont believe have had to buy yet.
It is good cleaning product, my mum used to line the base of her oven, to soak up spillage, then ease to clean off.
I use it to rinse my bras, as had alergy years ago and Doctor said the easiest way was to rinse bras it in that, rather than going through a million eliminations to determine the cause.
It is also used in some toothpaste. I use it occasionally on my teeth, but too often. Lifts the tea/coffee stains
Concentrated solutions of NaOH (aka lye, aka caustic soda) turns fat and other lipids into soap. Most clogged household drains are clogged by fat and other lipids. This isn't a super fast process, but in the US I have used Drano and it has never let me down when dealing with an entirely clogged drain.
Slow running drains are actually harder to fix chemically - it just tends to run by without dissolving enough of the clog. However, it will also dissolve your skin if given time (we are, after all, made out of lipids) and probably isn't a very green solution.
The non-chemical approach to clogged drains tends to be messier and trickier, but is probably greener than any chemical strong enough to dissolve clogs reliably.