What Are Your Favorite Natural Cleaning Recipes?
The contents of my cleaning cabinet have dwindled to just vinegar, baking soda and essential oils over the years. When I wander into the aisle of cleaners at the grocery store, I'm reminded of the money and health saved. Patchouli has become what "clean" smells like in my home. But always enjoy new recipes and ideas for natural cleaners, what are yours?
Comments
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I don't have any recipes off the top of my head, but my list looks like yours, plus hydrogen peroxide and castile soap. H3O is great when you need to sanitize.
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My list matches yours as well.
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I really like to extract lemon or orange oils by soaking organic peels in vinegar, straining, then diluting the vinegar (I think its 1/3 vinegar to 2/3 water) for a good all purpose cleaner that smells great :)
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about 80% of the time just use Plain water. For sanitizing White vinegar. in the Laundry "Shout". Rarely bleach in cleaning.
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White vinegar is my go to and sometimes I add essential oil, depending on my mood! Citrus, tea tree, oregano or lavender. A cup of Olive oil with a few drops of citrus, makes a great wood polish/cleaner.
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I know that original "Dawn" is not completely natural/organic, but my go-to cleaner from toilets to windows is some strength of Dawn/Vinegar/Water.
For fiberglass (tubs/showers) it does a great job dissolving soap scum, etc.; great at cleaning the stove. Weaker versions are used for countertops, weaker still for floors, weaker still for windows. If there's something really heavy duty, I'll add some baking soda for scrubbing. I also add Lemon essential oil to vinegar and water. I LOVE the smell of lemon and add it to Epson salts as a laundry softener and I diffuse it when I want that clean smell in the house.
The basic recipe is 1 part dawn to 2 parts vinegar to 6 parts water. More Dawn and Vinegar and less water if you want it stronger, for something like windows, just a drop of Dawn to a tablespoon or so of vinegar and lots of water.
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@Karyn Pennington I agree with you. Dawn is my last holdout in my otherwise non-toxic house cleaning routine.
I use e-Cloth microfiber items with water for most of my cleaning, works even for windows. Other microfiber cloth brands have not worked as well for me.
I have yet to find a perfect non-toxic solution to hard water toilet rings though.
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I'm trying to cut down on the amount of single use plastic we currently use in our home (not as easy as I thought it would be!) I just discovered a great product, the LoofCo washing up brush - which is made from coir fibre (coconut hairs.)The company has a really great ethos and the product works really well. They also manufacture vegetable scrubbers and bath loofahs. Although not a recipe, I thought I'd ask what other natural cleaning products you guys might also recommend? What have you tried?
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@Karyn Pennington the toilet bowl is always a tricky one.......
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My answer for the toilet bowl is swish early and often. Literally, a swish a day with just a squirt of cleaner is much more effective than scrubbing for 20 minutes once in a while. I raised boys, so it was a habit I got into early, toilets get wiped down (nearly) daily. And, yes, I have well water.
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In the US, Loofco products are available through an Amazon third party seller.
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I agree with everyone! Isn't it funny....now when shopping or in public places the chemical smells in the cleaning isles and cleaning products used really makes me think "WOW" don't miss that. I did a neat thing this year. Took the needles off our Christmas tree and put them in vinegar and let it sit a month and another bottle sat longer. The smell was oh so yummy pine! Strained and put in a spray bottle to clean surfaces.
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I've got some very concentrated homemade citrus vinegar that I haven't really been able to use because certain-members-of-my-household-who-shall-remain-nameless are super-sensitive to the smell of vinegar. I'm wondering if there are any essential oils I can add to the diluted vinegar to sort of mask the smell or "evolve" it into something more acceptable to these sensitive noses.... Thoughts? Thank you! :)
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@Merin Porter I have one of those nameless individuals too. It dissipates so quickly (as far as I'm concerned) but he (or she) swears he (or she) 👃can smell it several hours later. Maybe a sweet orange essential oil in with the citrus vinegar? 🍊
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@sarah121 Thank you for sharing where you get your scrubbie brushes! I've been on the same trek of trying to eliminate one-time-use or short-time-use plastics and may just have to get one of their coco brushes!
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That's a terrific idea! I've done the citrus vinegar, but I never thought of pine.
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Worth a try!!! Thanks, @Karyn Pennington !
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@blevinandwomba , I'm so sorry if this is completely obvious, but what do you mean by H3O? I'm sitting here trying to rack my brain about the molecular breakdown of water (H2O) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) ... and maybe you're referring to a combination of the two? Basically, I'm just wondering if you use straight hydrogen peroxide as your sanitizer or a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and something else.... :D Thanks!
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Hot water / steam work well on many things. Also, after squeezing a lemon for other use, I sometimes use the remaining lemon peel/pulp to scrub the kitchen sink as sort of a pre-cleaning step.
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I like to use wool dryer balls with a few drops of essential oil to toss in my dryer. I used to use fabric softener but decided the chemicals weren't worth it.
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I meant H2O2- sorry.
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@Merin Porter Patchouli and Lavender essential oils completely masks the vinegar smell, others may as well but those are the main two I use.
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White vinegar full strength in a spray bottle.
Lemon
But for a lot of stuff I use 3% hydrogen peroxide. I put it in a spray bottle full strength and spray according to need, leave on according to need, then easily wipe off and it sure dose make having to scrub mostly non existent. Important when you have arthritis, and makes a very quick clean up.
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For laundry soap I use three tablespoons each of Borax, washing soda and original blue dawn dissolved in a gallon of very hot water. I just put it in an old laundry soap liquid bottle that I had and use a full cap if it's a big or very dirty load or a bit less for delicates. I've been using this for about five years now in three different locals. You can also pretreat with it in direct application. You can add essential oils if you want but I prefer to just put a drop of lavender oil on one of the wool dryer balls. I want a clothes line! Best bleach ever lol. Its on my list 😜
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I also put my lemon peels in vinegar in a mason jar for about 6 weeks. Then strain and store as my go-to concentrate all purpose cleaner. Ratio one part concentrate to four parts water. Cleans great and smells wonderful! I’ve also used a mixture of lemon and orange.
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I love this book for alot of my natural cleaning products. I bought it on Amazon for 12.00.
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@Midge I noticed that this book is not yet reviewed on Amazon. Are willing to share your opinion there?
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I have the baking soda and vinegar for cleaning, but one of my favorites is Thieves Cleaning Solution from Young Living. It only takes a little in a spray bottle with water added. My favorite part about it is the fragrance. You can use it in all your cleaning including mopping floors. Yes, I used to sell Young Living, but have not for several years, but I still buy the cleaning solution from them.
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Thyme and Lemon in vinegar (use essential oils OR can infuse fresh thyme and a lemon in vinegar for 2 weeks) and add castile soap makes a good cleaner.
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I love baking soda and peroxide for bleaching my sinks. Also, for hard water stains I cut a lemon in half and sprinkle with baking soda. It gets hard cakey stuff like that off. We are on a well so I don't feel comfortable using traditional cleaners, ammonia or bleach.
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