31 Days To Better Domestic Service: Simple Homemade Cleaners

You may have seen the two previous posts about some green and homemade cleaners on the guide. If not, here are links to the articles.

Green Recipes for Home and Health

How to Make Laundry Soap

In this article I’m going to share even more recipes for making cleaners that are safer for the water table and don’t have any weird chemicals in them. Oh and they are a lot cheaper to make!

I’m finding recipes all over the web as I begin to remove the chemicals in the home and replace it with vinegar, baking soda, bleach and salt. The way people cleaned before all the expensive blends on the market. It will save us money and save the environment at the same time. I’ve collected most of these from  down—to—earth where I go almost everyday to read about Rhonda who lives simply every day. Highly recommended! INGREDIENTS FOR HOMEMADE CLEANERS

• Baking soda
• Washing soda
• Borax
• Pure laundry soap or homemade soap
• White vinegar
• Tea tree oil
• Eucalyptus oil
• Ammonia
• Liquid bleach

NEVER MIX AMMONIA and BLEACH! THE FUMES COULD KILL YOU!

Never mix ammonia with vinegar – they neutralize each other.

All these products will cost you less about $30 to buy at the supermarket and you’ll have enough to make the recipes for various cleaning jobs for many weeks.

Some of these I have not used yet. If you’ve used it try to comment on how well it works. Oven Cleaner

• ¼ cup ammonia
• 2 cups of warm water

Turn on the oven and leave to heat up for 5 minutes. Pour ammonia and warm water in a baking dish and leave in the warmed oven overnight. This will loosen the grime in the oven, which you can then clean with an ammonia-based cleaner or soap and water. You can also scour with a paste of bicarb soda and water.

All-Purpose Cleaner #1 – do not use on aluminium

• 1 tablespoon ammonia
• 1 tablespoon liquid soap or homemade laundry detergent
• 2 cups hot water

Combine in a spray bottle. Pour in hot water, screw on the spray bottle top and shake until completely dissolved. This cleaner can be stored in this spray bottle, so mark it “HOMEMADE ALL PURPOSE CLEANER” with a permanent marker.

Spray the cleaner on surfaces you wish to clean. Use your terry cloth to rub on as you go. For hard to move grease or dirt, leave the cleanser on for a few minutes before wiping it off.All-Purpose Cleaner #2

• ¼ cup baking soda (bicarb)
• 1 cup ammonia
• 2 litres warm water

Creamy soft scrubber

• Simply pour about ½ cup of baking soda into a bowl, and add enough liquid soap to make a texture like very thick cream.
• Note: To keep it moist, add 1 teaspoon of glycerin to the mixture and store in a sealed glass jar. Otherwise just make as much as you need at a time.

Toilet bowl cleaner

• 1 cup baking soda
• 1 cup vinegar

Will fizz. Let sit for 10 mins. Scrub with toilet brush and flush. Floor cleaner – floating wood, tiles, vinyl or laminate

• ½ cup white vinegar plus 4 litres hot water in a bucket and a clean mop will clean up all but the worst floor.
• If you have a really dirty floor to deal with, add ¼ cup grated homemade soap to this mix.

Wooden floor cleaner

• 2 tablespoons homemade vegetable soap – grated
• ½ cup vinegar
• 500 mls strong black tea (about a pint)
• bucket warm water

Concentrated laundry powder – this is the powder I have used for over a year and it’s only cost me $12 for the ingredients… for the whole year!

• 4 cups grated laundry or homemade soap or soap flakes (Lux)
• 2 cups borax
• 2 cups washing soda

Mix all the ingredients thoroughly and store in a plastic container with a lid. Use 

2 tablespoons per wash. This powder will not make suds, this is perfectly okay. Fabric softener

½ cup white vinegar in final rinse Window Cleaner # 1

• ¼ – ½ teaspoon liquid or grated soap
• 3 tablespoons vinegar
• 2 cups waterspray bottle

Put all the ingredients into a spray bottle, shake it up a bit, and use as you would a commercial brand. The soap in this recipe is important. It cuts the wax residue from the commercial brands you might have used in the past.

Window Cleaner # 2

• Vinegar and newspapers

Pour a little vinegar onto a sheet of newspaper and wipe windows. Remove all the grime and polish the window with a clean sheet of newspaper.Misty’s Cleaning Solution – for Swiffer Mop Systems

• 2 tablespoons of ammonia
• ½ cup of vinegar
• ½ teaspoon of Johnson’sbaby shampoo

Fill the rest of the container with water.

While researching the properties of the different ingredients:

1. Ammonia is an awesome cleaner and spot remover
2. Vinegar kills bacteria, mold, and germs and it’s a great rinse agent
3. Johnson Baby shampoo smells good and seems to add a sparkle to the floor (don’t try to use an off name brand – they streak!).

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