We have rounded up some great and easy DIY natural cleaning recipes for your family home! Using natural products to clean your home is an awesome way to improve your family’s quality of life. It is becoming a very popular trend to use natural cleaning ideas at home, but this is a trend that is well worth climbing on board of, and that we kind of hope will last. Read on for more ideas for using natural products.
The benefits of following natural cleaning tips
- You create a healthier environment for your family. The products you use in the air, on surfaces and floors, as well as on clothes, sheets and towels, will all be better for your children’s lungs, stomachs and skin.
- If you have crawling babies, this is even more important.
- Using natural products around your home is better for the environment as a whole, with less chemicals making their way into the air and the waterways.
- You also create less rubbish by following your own DIY cleaning recipes and reusing your own refillable spray bottles or reusable wipes.
- Chemical cleaners can be linked to conditions such as asthma and eczema, as well as childhood development of allergies and food intolerances.
- Making your own products will save you money significantly, which for modern families, is never a bad thing.
The best essential ingredients for DIY cleaning recipes and natural cleaning tips
Baking Soda
There is nothing this little white powder can’t do. The incredibly magic baking soda can be used to clean many different surfaces in your home, including porcelain and stainless steel in bathrooms and kitchens, on stoves and inside ovens, inside fridges and to get floors sparkling.
If you are looking for natural cleaning tips then you can’t go past baking soda. It is a great air deodoriser and can be sprinkled on carpets and vacuumed up or kept open inside your fridge to absorb stinky food odours.
It also can be used to clean up wet stains like pet urine, coffee or wine from carpets and from clothes. For stains, sprinkle baking soda onto the stain and leave it to sit for at least ten minutes to soak it up. Then either vacuum or tip off the baking soda and wash the area with vinegar and water.
Vinegar
Vinegar is another incredible multi-purpose product. You can buy plain white vinegar very cheap from supermarkets and then use it to clean virtually anything. Similar to baking soda it will clean mould and stains from almost any surface and can be used as a laundry cleaner as well.
Vinegar can be used as a natural deodoriser, neutralising odours extremely well. Vinegar can also be mixed with hot water as a cleaner for wooden floors and kills as many germs as bleach.
Oranges
Orange oil is a common ingredient in cleaners, and you can get the same result from mixing orange peel or orange essential oil with some water and making a spray for your home. This makes a lovely citrus cleaner and odour neutraliser.
Essential Oils
Other essential oils are also wonderful around the home, and although these are not cheap, you only use drops at a time, so they last forever.
Adding a few drops of your favourite essential oil to a water spray can provide a beautiful fragrance to any clean surface, upholstery or just in the air.
Lavender and lemon combined make a handy disinfectant, or you could use eucalyptus as a nice cleaner, or peppermint for a really fresh finish.
Different scents also create different feelings and can help you go to sleep, can lower stress and anxiety, can reduce conditions like eczema and asthma, can lift your mood and increase your energy levels.
If you would like to know more about cleaning or using Essential Oils around your home please contact the lovely Bec from Tropical Blends. She can help you with all your essential oil needs!
Borax
Borax is a boron compound, a mineral, and a salt of boric acid. A completely natural product, it is an awesome cleaner and can also be used as an antiseptic, as an environmentally friendly pesticide and is one of the main components of homemade slime!
Olive Oil and Lemon Juice
This delicious combination when mixed with steaming hot water makes a great cleaner for hardwood floors and wood polisher for furniture.
DIY Natural Cleaning Recipes
A massive shout-out to Keeper of the Home for these awesome recipes. You will literally never need to buy chemical cleaners again!
Magic All-Purpose Cleaner
- ½ cup white vinegar
- 2 tablespoons baking soda
- 10 drops tea tree, lavender or lemon essential oils (for their disinfectant properties)
Mix the vinegar, essential oils and a little water before adding baking soda in a clean glass spray bottle around 350ml in size. Then fill to top with water. Gently shake to mix ingredients, and then spray whatever surface you need to clean, wipe with a cloth, and allow it to dry.
This one is fantastic for pretty much every surface in your kitchen, bathroom, toilet or laundry.
Air Freshener
- 12 – 15 drops of pure essential oil
- ½ cup white vinegar
- 1 ½ tablespoons water
Combine in a spray bottle, shake, and spray to freshen any room (Shake before each use).
Homemade Mirror and Glass Cleaner
- ¼ cup white vinegar
- ¼ cup isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol
- 1 tablespoon cornflour
- 2 cups water
- 8 – 10 drops essential oil of choice, optional
Combine everything in a spray bottle. Shake to mix well before every use. Spray onto glass surface and wipe clean.
Homemade Drain Cleaner
- ¼ – ½ cup baking soda
- ¼ cup white vinegar
Sprinkle baking soda down the drain and follow that with the vinegar. Let the bubbling mixture sit for an hour or so, then pour boiling hot water down the drain to rinse. You may need to repeat this process for a particularly clogged drain.
Homemade Oven Cleaner
- ½ cup baking soda
- 2 – 3 tablespoons water
- ½ white vinegar
In a small bowl, mix ½ cup of baking soda and stir in 2 – 3 tablespoons of water, adjusting as needed to get a spreadable paste.
Spread this all over the walls of your ovens, rubbing it in for a scrubbing effect. Let that mixture rest overnight.
In the morning, you will put some vinegar in a spray bottle and spritz everywhere you see baking soda, which will create a foaming action. Wipe clean with a damp cloth, rinsing until clean.
Homemade Dishwasher Detergent
- 1 cup salt
- 2 cups baking soda
- 2 cups Borax
- 12 drops lemon essential oil
Mix all ingredients together. Transfer to an air-tight storage container: each load will need around 2 tablespoons of detergent.
Homemade Disinfectant Wipes
- 8 drops tea tree oil
- 1 cup water
- ¼ cup with vinegar
- 8 drops eucalyptus essential oil
- 8 drops lemon essential oil
- Empty “wipe” container (baby wipe, for example)
- 15 – 20 squares of cloth (old t-shirts work well, as do old dish towels or similar material)
Fold and place the cloth squares into the empty wipe container and set aside.
Combine in a mixing bowl the water, vinegar, and 3 essential oils. Stir until well mixed.
Pour this mixture over the cloths in the container where they will soak in and be ready for you to pull out and use!
Run these through your laundry when dirty and repeat the whole process as often as the cloths hold up!
We hope you enjoyed reading all these DIY natural cleaning recipes, tips and tricks for cleaning around your house. If you have any other ideas please leave us a comment!
Resources
https://keeperofthehome.org/homemade-all-natural-cleaning-recipes/
