After Garion was born, I started reading a lot about the various chemicals and solvents sold in the grocery stores that we typically use to clean our homes with. Much of the research, some of which is just now staring to become more mainstream, suggests that many of those chemicals are not only unnecessarily harsh, but kill beneficial bacteria and have unknown consequences on humans exposed to their various fumes over a lifetime. Or, in a nutshell, lots of them probably give you cancer. I started looking for alternatives and here's what I've found for "make it yourself" cleaning products. I've been using my homemade products for a couple of years now and found that they clean just fine and smell nice too.
glass/window cleaner: 1/4 cup vinegar, 1 cup water, 1 tsp. dish washing liquid (I like the hippy kind from the hippy store). Mix it up, put it in a spray bottle and use the same way you would windex. Works great, no streaks and it is cheap, cheap, cheap. I also discovered, when I was to lazy to walk across the house one day, that rubbing alcohol works really well too.
*as a brief aside, I also quit using paper towels to clean the mirror/glass and started using rags or wash clothes, they work just as well and are nice and re-usable.
tub scrub: baking soda. If it's really bad baking soda and vinegar. If you want a little sudzing action, make a paste out of the baking soda and some dish washing liquid.
toilet bowl cleaner: straight vinegar, baking soda if you need to scrub. I have read, and it seems likely, that vinegar has lots of anti-bacterial properties.
all purpose, counter-top cleaner: 20 drops lavender or peppermint oil and two cups of water. Mix it up, put in a spray bottle and use like you would the other stuff. Lavender and peppermint are also supposed to have antibacterial properties.
fabric softener: I put about 1/2 cup of vinegar in a Downy ball and toss it in the wash. The vinegar works great but doesn't leave any kind of residue on your clothes (clothes do not smell like vinegar when done, which is nice, because who wants to walk around smelling like a salad?) As soon as I finish my current bottle of laundry detergent, I'm going to try making my own. I won't post the recipe yet, since I haven't tried it and therefore can't endorse it, but I'll let you know how it goes.
Go forth and clean green.
I, too, have been experimenting with home cleansing products after nearly killing myself by asphyxiation using some heavy duty bathroom cleanser. And I worry about the cats, who are attracted by whatever cleanser I use.
ReplyDeleteI use a lot of your same mixes, and once I've used up the glass cleaner we currently have, plan to switch entirely to homemade glass cleaner.
I also like using Murphy's Oil Soap - I like the smell, and it's fairly non-toxic.
The only place I have a hard time forgoing the Pine Sol is the bathroom floor - I don't quite trust my own concoctions. But, maybe switching to Murphy's for that will still give me peace of mind.