Cleaning products are among the fastest-growing green categories, according to Ron Jarvis, Home Depot’s vice president of environmental innovation. “They used to be twice the cost and half the benefits,” he says. “Consumers will buy green if it does everything a standard product does and has less impact on the environment.”

The owner of the Green Mop housekeeping service in Arlington, has seen her young company thrive by relying on purely green cleaning agents — mostly the lemons, baking soda and vinegar her Philippine mother used.

“I started as a green company in 2003 and never deviated,” says the owner, who came to America to attend graduate school. Today she has 18 employees and more than 100 customers. “My customers at first are skeptical that their houses can be really clean without using lots of chemicals, but then they see results. Lots of my clients have kids or pets or allergies or compromised immune systems. Plus they care about the environment.”

(Two) lawyers who live on Capitol Hill have used Green Mop services for a year. “It’s the best housecleaning service I’ve ever had,” one says. “I think most indoor environments are more polluted than the outside, and household cleaners are a big part of this.”