What do the words “clean home” mean to you? And how do you clean your house these days?
For a long time for me, cleaning was all about using tones of chemical products. I had an army of bottles for any purposes – gels, aerosols, sprays, powders, liquids… My house smelled with artificial perfumes of cleaning products, and for me, this smell was a sign of “clean home.”
HOMEMADE CLEANING PRODUCTS
Problems first started with laundry detergent – I became allergic to it. I had to replace my Tide with the “green” version (later, I learned how to make it myself). My doctor explained to me how the detergent provokes the allergy, and also advised to replace domestic cleaning products as well. I switched to “green labels” and saw the difference straight away, my allergy symptoms became less pronounced.
My skin suffered no more, but unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same about my budget … “Clean” household chemicals in a “bio” store next door was 3 times more expensive than the ones from a regular supermarket.
I started to look for alternative options, and – surprise! – there are so many of them! After doing some research, I’ve realized that you can actually make your own homemade cleaning products with simple and widely available ingredients:
- vinegar
- soda (baking one and washing one)
- liquid soap
- essential oils
That’s it. You can replace all your fancy products with those 4 basic ingredients, and clean, deodorize and disinfect the whole house with homemade products made out of it.
MULTIPURPOSE CLEANING SPRAY
You can use this spray to clean your kitchen and your bathtub or shower cabin – it kills germs and mold and removes bad odor and grease. It leaves no toxic residuals on the surfaces and evaporates totally in several minutes.
There are two ways to make it: you can infuse vinegar with fresh herbs or citrus peels, or you can use essential oils. I sometimes do both (for example, I first infuse vinegar with orange peels and then add several drops of pine or rosemary essential oil to it).
To infuse vinegar, you should take a glass jar, fill it with plants or citrus peels and pour it over the vinegar (white 6% or 9% vinegar works fine). Leave it for 2 weeks, and then make with it your own multipurpose cleaning spray:
- 1 cup of vinegar
- 1 cup of distilled water
- 15-20 drops of essential oils
Mix vinegar and essential oils, then add water and steer well. Put it in a glass bottle with a spray top, and use it as a natural cleaning spray.
TEA GLASS SPRAY
This one is also so simple, but cleans windows and mirrors so well! All commercial products I used left traces, and it was very annoying to see it on the windows after you’ve spent the entire morning cleaning it.
Try this one – you gonna love it:
- 1 cup of boiled water
- 1 tbsp of vinegar
- 1 black tea bag
Make a tea first and let it infuse (till you get really dark color), remove the teabag, add vinegar, and put it into the bottle with a spray top. Clean your windows as you would do with a commercial cleaner.
BATH AND SHOWER CABIN CLEANING SPRAY
This one will help you to remove annoying soap and toothpaste traces, you can use it to clean your bathtubs, tiles, and sink. I keep the bottle of it next to the sink so that I can do my everyday cleaning very fast right after brushing my teeth.
- 1 cup of boiled water
- 1 cup of unscented liquid soap
- 1 tbsp of washing soda
- 10 drops of tea tree essential oil
- 10 drops of lemon essential oil
As I live in France, I buy liquid Marseille soap or black soap (made with linen oil) – it is 100% natural, and you can find it in any store. You can take whatever unscented liquid soap you can find.
Add essential oils to soap, and steer it well. Put washing soda into hot boiled water and steer till it dissolves. Combine soap and water mixture together and put it into the spray bottle. Use within 3 months.
TOILET CLEANER
TV-commercials often use scary images of germs and bacteria in your toilet, trying to convince you that you need something extra powerful to kill it. But the truth is you can disinfect your toilet with pure vinegar, and it will kill 99% of germs and viruses as well. And it will also dissolve mineral deposits and leave your sanitary clean and shiny.
To clean your toilet, take in separate cups:
- 0,5 cup of baking soda
- 1 cup of vinegar
- 10 drops of essential oils of your choice (tea tree, pine, lemon, orange or lavender, for example)
Add essential oils to vinegar and mix it well. Put soda into your toilet, then add vinegar – you will see the active reaction between soda and vinegar. Let it make foam, and then take a toilet brush and clean the toilet with this foam.
If you have a lot of mineral deposits, you can leave this mixture for 2-3 hours and then clean the toilet as usual.
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