How To Clean Your Home With White Vinegar

White Vinegar is definitely something that changed my life. I knew it’s a great product. I did not know how much it was. For any cleaning purposes, there’s a good chance vinegar will be the ingredient you need. I now use it to clean my windows, mirrors, grease, as a multi-purpose cleaner, stain remover, laundry softener… The possibilities are limitless.

Why not use regular house cleaning products sold in store?

One of the things we,  “consumers” (I hate that word) need to understand is that the cleaning industry is worth $168 BILLION!! When it goes to that kind of amount, don’t expect the big leaders to make a change without being forced by law or massive cultural change. And also why you won’t hear much about the harmful chemicals found in them.

Yet, the chemicals, have been linked to asthma, cancer, reproductive and developmental toxicity, allergies, poisonings… So we can pay a little to get products that can lead to visits at the hospital, pay a lot for better product (but you’ll still will have plastic container pilling in landfills, or we can pay little for vinegar and make great BS-free cleaning solutions that works. Here’s a great report by EWG that goes more into details on the subject.

But The Smell…

The smell can be an issue for some, if that’s your case, 2 approches exist. You can either put some essential oil in your container to dissolve it, or you can put some orange, lemon, grapefruit ( I even saw cinnamon sticks!) in a jar where you add vinegar and let macerate for a couple of days or up to a week. Plus it helps reuse the peels of fruits we eat before composting, and that is a great zero-waste step before composting.

I recently started to use my peels to give my vinegar a nice citrus smell, but sometimes I prefer to put lavender or other smells. It mostly depend on the season, and my what I want to use the vinegar for. Next step, I will probably try with basil, thym or rosemary… the Mediterranean in me feels like it could be a good one.. Will see!

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You may also like:

Recipe: DIY Grapefruit Toilet Cleaner

Zero-Waste Essential: Baking Soda & How to use it

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My Ultimate list of Vinegar Based Cleaning Solutions: Part 1.

For most if these, the recipe is so easy that I am just giving the ingredients: Use a container (ideally glass or reuse the ones you already have, put all the ingredient in it, mix well. Ta dam!

Multi-surface Cleaner

1. 1 cup distilled water

2. 1 cup white distilled vinegar*

3. 1/2 lemon juiced (optional)

4. 15 drops lavender essential oil or orange or rosemary!

Window Cleaner

1. 2 cups of  distilled water

2. 1 cup of vinegar

3. 1/2 tsp liquid dish soap

4. 10 drops of grapefruit

Floors:

1. 10 drops of peppermint (eucalyptus, lemon. pine, sweet orange 10 drops per gallon)

2. 3/4 cup of vinegar

3. 3/4 cup of water

For carpets:

1. 10 drops of lavender for each gallon of water in carpet cleaner or 10 drops of teat tree

2. 10 drops of lemon

3. 3 tbsp distilled vinegar

4. 16 ounces of baking soda

Fabric Softener:

(for more info related to laundry and softener, you can read my post on the subject, here!)

1. 1 cup baking soda

2. 6 cups distilled white vinegar

3. 6 cups of water

4. 15 drops (essential oil)

Wood furniture polish

1. 16 ounce spray bottle full of water

2. 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

3. 1/4 distilled vinegar

4. 12/15 drops ess. oil like lemon

Dishwasher Cleaner: Put a couple of tablespoon of vinegar in the after wash section of your dishwasher to clean your machine. Easy, cheap and your washer will last longer!

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Try the one that feels good, and let me know which one work and which don’t. Don’t hesitate to add a recipe you like in the comment section. I’ll write soon a new post with more recipes related to vinegar but in the garden.

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