Homemade (green) Cleaning Products

So here's the thing: I've never put a lot of thought into what kind of products I use or clean with. It wasn't for any particular reason, I just haven't. I don't obsess about organic food or drinks and I guess I just filed cleaning products under the same umbrella. But yesterday I went to a friend's party that she hosted. It was one of those product parties like Pampered Chef where a rep comes to your friend's house and talks about their product, demonstrates the product, and then tries her darndest to get you to buy all of their products. This was just like that, except the products she was selling were all cleaning products.

The thing that she said that really swayed me was about our laundry: the chemicals we wash and dry our clothes with are being soaked into our skin and body 24/7 because we're either wearing our clothes or sleeping on our sheets or drying ourselves off with our towels. And apparently those chemicals aren't pleasant. So after about two and a half hours of a great sales pitch and me feeling like I could make a case for us needing everything but realizing that I certainly don't have hundreds of extra dollars laying around to buy it all, I took the catalog home to talk to the hubs and see what he thought. Long story short, I ended up on Pinterest, and found recipes for natural, homemade cleaning products to replace everything I have been using to clean my house. It turns out that once you decide you're bothered about laundry chemicals the domino effect falls from there to the rest of the chemicals. Except food. I'll tackle food a different day, maybe.

I got the ingredients for redoing my laundry cleaners, but since the laundry detergent I already have is already all-natural, I'll ride this gallon jug out and make my own afterwards. I'll share those recipes in a post when I actually make them.

I did make five different cleaning products today, though. Here's what I needed:

• 5 squirt bottles (one for each product you make)
• a funnel
• measuring cups
• measuring spoons
• some sort of label for each squirt bottle
• white distilled vinegar
• rubbing alcohol
• dish soap
• cornstarch
• olive oil
• lemon juice
• water

First, I made the labels for the bottles, using fun scrapbook paper obviously. 

 Doesn't that just make cleaning look fun and exciting?! That was the plan anyway. I traced a small candle, cut them out, and labeled them.

I'm sure I've made it clear by now that I'm not nearly as fancy as I try to appear, so even though I made these pretty labels with fun and exciting scrapbook paper, I used a whole bunch of Scotch tape to apply them to the bottles. Waterproof and durable...can't argue all that much with it. Also, I couldn't find the packaging tape.

Next was actually making the cleaners. They were all super easy, and took about ten minutes total probably. Here were the recipes I used for each one:


Stainless Steel Cleaner/Floor Cleaner:

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup white distilled vinegar
• 1 cup rubbing alcohol
• 2-3 drops dish soap

All-Purpose Cleaner:

• 3/4 cup white vinegar
• 3/4 cup water

Dusting Spray:

• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1/4 cup white distilled vinegar
• 1 cup water

Granite Cleaner:

• 1/2 cup rubbing alcohol
• 8 drops dish soap
• 2 cups water

Glass Cleaner:

• 1/4 cup rubbing alcohol
• 1/4 cup white distilled vinegar
• 1 Tbs cornstarch
• 2 cups water

A special note: you'll need to shake the bottles each time you use them. It's kind of common sense, but you can see in the dusting spray in the middle of this picture that the olive oil is separated from the rest of the liquid, and the cornstarch in the glass cleaner can clog the hose if you don't give it a good shake.

Within minutes of making them all, I had to do some cleaning, obviously. I've used all of them but the all-purpose cleaner so far, and I can say that they're all awesome. I've never felt like my granite counters were very clean; there's always a weird film left behind no matter what I use. This granite cleaner, though, is great. The counters are clean and actually feel clean! The window cleaner easily eliminated a couple weeks' worth of Captain's nose prints all over my back door! The dusting spray is awesome! And the stainless steel cleaner...well. My stainless steel is clean. And it's usually not. You want proof? Here's a super embarrassing before and after of my stove:

I blame Captain for those smudges, too, by the way.

And the best part of all of this is that to buy all the ingredients needed for these cleaners (including the bottles which hopefully won't need to be replaced anytime soon), was super cheap! Here's the breakdown:

• gallon jug of white distilled vinegar = $2.38
• baking soda = $2.06
• cornstarch = $1.00
• spray bottles = $2.00 (x5 bottles)
• rubbing alcohol = $1.96 (x2 bottles)
  =$19.36 (not including tax)

How great is that? And it's not at all as if that $20 paid for just those five bottles of cleaners...I've barely tapped into all of those ingredients. I should be set for a while. I'll be sure to keep track of how long this shopping trip lasts me and how far that $20 stretches time wise.

Regardless, I'm excited about saving us some money and feeling a little bit better about the stuff we're breathing in and coating our house in. Dryer sheets are the next thing to go (just as soon as I remember to go to Hobby Lobby on a day other than Sunday...)