Description
What is in the bottle, and what the name refers to
Natural Riches Five Guards Household Cleaner Concentrate is a 32 fluid ounce essential oil based cleaning concentrate. The Five Guards name refers to a folk story about thieves who allegedly protected themselves during a plague outbreak with a spice and herb blend, and the oil combinations sold under that story have become a small category of their own. Whatever you make of the tale, the useful part is that Natural Riches actually names the oils: clove, cinnamon, rosemary, lemon and eucalyptus.
That disclosure is more than most listings in this catalog manage, and it lets a buyer make an informed decision, which is the point of naming ingredients. The related product on this site from the brand that popularized the category is the Young Living Thieves spray, and comparing the two is mostly a question of which oil blend and which format you want.
Concentrated, with no ratio published
The listing describes the product as ultra concentrated and says a small amount goes a long way. It does not say how small. There is no dilution ratio anywhere on the page: not for the carpet use, not for floors, not for counters, not for glass and not for walls, all of which are named as suitable applications and all of which would take very different strengths.
A concentrate without a ratio cannot be used correctly. Too little and it does nothing. Too much and you leave a residue on every surface you treat, which on glass shows as smearing and on floors shows as a film that attracts more dirt than it removed. The printed label is the only place that number can be. Read it before opening the bottle, and if the label does not give ratios for each surface either, contact the manufacturer. For comparison, the Branch Basics concentrate publishes five separate ratios on its own listing, and that is the standard a concentrate should be held to.
Two statements on this page contradict each other
Natural Riches says the cleaner is safe to use around your family including kids and pets and that it contains no harmful chemicals. The same listing then closes with the manufacturer’s own cautions: not for internal use, keep out of reach of children, avoid contact with eyes. Both sets of words are on the same page and they do not sit together. A product that must be kept out of reach of children and away from eyes is a product that requires respect, and that is fine and normal for a cleaning concentrate. It is the blanket safety wording that is out of place, not the cautions.
Essential oils, surfaces and the households that need to be careful
Because the oils are named, some useful things can be said about them as a class. Clove and cinnamon oils in particular are recognized skin sensitizers: repeated exposure can produce a reaction in people who had none at first. Citrus oils can be irritating and can affect some plastics and finishes. Essential oils in general are a known concern around cats, which metabolize certain compounds poorly, and around birds, which are sensitive to airborne substances of all kinds.
None of that can be assessed for this specific product, because the listing gives no concentrations and does not say what the oils are carried in. What it does mean is that the sensible precautions are worth taking: wear gloves when handling the undiluted concentrate, ventilate while you clean, keep pets off treated floors until they are fully dry, and keep birds out of the room during and after cleaning.
On surfaces, Natural Riches names carpets, floors, counters, glass and walls, and adds boats and recreational vehicles. What it does not name is anything to avoid, and the usual candidates apply: natural stone, unsealed wood, waxed floors, and painted surfaces where a strong solvent effect can soften the paint. Without a pH figure or a full formulation, test any of those in a hidden spot and let it dry fully before judging. Carpet in particular should be tested for colorfastness, since an oil carrying cleaner left in a pile can hold soil rather than release it.
Using it, storing it and the mixing rule
Once you have a ratio from the label, measure it rather than pouring by eye. Add the concentrate to the water rather than the other way around, and label every bottle you fill with what is in it and at what strength. Two spray bottles at different dilutions look identical and behave very differently on a delicate surface.
Store the concentrate capped, upright, out of direct sunlight and out of reach of children, exactly as the manufacturer’s own caution says. Undiluted concentrate is the strongest form the product will ever take, and a bottle described as natural is no less concentrated for the description.
Never combine it with another cleaner. Do not add it to a bucket that already contains something, do not spray it onto a surface still wet with a bleach or a bathroom product, and do not mix it with a descaler. The full formulation here is undisclosed, so no interaction can be predicted, and mixing household cleaning chemistries is a genuine route to fumes in a room you are standing in. If a first product has not worked, rinse the surface thoroughly with water, dry it, and then try something else.
Cost structure, copy quality and the alternatives
Concentrates are the most economical way to buy cleaning solution per finished ounce, and that argument applies here as it does everywhere. It also cannot be quantified from this page, because without a ratio there is no way to know how many finished ounces the bottle makes. Until you have that number, this cannot be compared with anything on price.
One more thing worth mentioning, since it bears on how much weight to put on the rest of the page. The feature bullets contain several broken or truncated sentences, at least one mangled character in the brand name, and a superlative claim about the oil blend, backed by a lifetime money back guarantee. Copy assembled this loosely is not evidence about the product in the bottle, but it is a reason to verify anything important against the printed label rather than the listing.
Alternatives worth weighing: the REVIVE Protect cleaner concentrate takes the same essential oil approach and shares the same missing ratio problem, the Zep multi purpose cleaner is a conventional concentrate sold by the gallon, and the Capri Blue all purpose cleaner is a scented ready to use option for anyone who would rather not dilute. See the all-purpose cleaners category and, for the mopping use this product also claims, the floor cleaners category.
Who should buy it, and who should not
Buy it if you want an essential oil based concentrate whose oils are actually listed, you have the dilution ratio from the label, and a spiced citrus scent is what you want in the house. Skip it if you need the ratio before buying, if anyone in the household is sensitive to fragrance or to clove and cinnamon specifically, if you keep cats or birds and would rather not spread an oil blend across their floor, or if you need a full ingredient declaration. And read the safety wording on the listing as a whole rather than in parts: the manufacturer’s own cautions are the more useful half.
