Why a few compounds beat a cabinet of products

A spray for glass, a bottle for the drain, a pod for the laundry, a kit for the first-aid closet, a jug for the dog run — each one is a formula you cannot rebuild when the label is a brand that no longer ships. Most of those formulas are a short list of the compounds in this book, plus water, plus scent.

Stock the short list instead. Baking soda is an antacid, a cleaner, a deodorizer, a leavener, and a dry dump for a small pan fire. Vinegar descale, pickles, and rinses. Salt preserves, seasons, and makes saline. A pound of the right pool shock, stored like the oxidizer it is, can disinfect on the order of thousands of gallons of water. Honey is food that does not die.

What you give in return

Raw compounds do not come with a cartoon mascot and a child-safe trigger. They come with grades, percentages, and incompatibilities. That is the whole job of the pages that follow. If you are not willing to store pool shock alone, do not buy pool shock. Buy bleach, date it, and rotate it. The den is not a museum of dangerous powders. It is a working shelf with a few serious jars treated seriously.