Do you like to keep your home clean, fresh, free from bacteria, and smelling invitingly fragrant? Who doesn’t? Want to save money and avoid harmful or unhealthy chemicals by utilizing natural ingredients for your cleaning solutions? Well, you’ve come to the right place. These helpful tips will teach you just what you need to know to keep your home sparkling clean while using healthy ingredients that won’t pollute the air you breathe and surfaces you touch, and it could even save you money. Getting that wonderful, all-natural, deep clean can be just a few simple steps away, so pay attention:
Salt and Baking Soda – You can utilize the combination of salt and baking soda for a number of things when it comes to cleaning and deodorizing your home. It makes for a decent scrubbing agent and is both safe and non-toxic. You can find it in stores everywhere and both salt and baking soda are fairly cheap. So, what is it used for?
Salt and baking powder mixtures (especially those with sea salt) are perfect for an all-purpose, environment-friendly scrubbing agent. They are great for cleaning tubs, sinks, hard surfaces, and more. They also deodorize harsh smells and are great for vacuuming the stains out of the carpet. Just apply baking soda and a small amount of salt to water until it makes a paste-like material. You can use it on just about anything, and naturalists love it because it reduces risks to your health that one might take with traditional cleaning products.
Vinegar and Water – Vinegar makes for an awesomely effective cleaning solution when mixed with water. Just dilute your white vinegar or pure vinegar in a solution of about 1 part vinegar for every 2 or 3 parts water, and you will have a useful and safe cleaning solution that replaces the need for many common household cleaning products which may contain hazardous chemicals dangerous to your health. Vinegar based cleaners can be used for windows and mirrors, pet urine stains, and even on tougher jobs like steel and metal. If vinegar is pure, you can sometimes even use it to remove rust and reduce the effects of formaldehyde and mildew on surfaces. The uses for pure vinegar and white vinegar in household cleaning are virtually endless. If used and rinsed properly, it can even act as a deodorizer.
Olive Oil and Lemon Juice – This is a particularly good mixture for dusting, furniture polishing, air freshening, and rust prevention. Deep cleaners in this solution may contain heavier amounts of olive oil, while air fresheners and fragrant polishes should have less olive oil and more lemon juice. From the lightest furniture dusting job to the toughest metal wiping, you can get it done with this stuff. Lime juice may also be added to deep cleaners for supplementing a rust-removing effect. This mixture is great on wood floors or any sort of wood furniture, plus it has a sweet lemony scent!
Water and Essential Oils – Sometimes you have to look a little further than the corner store. If you can find essential oils; whether at a health food store, online, or wherever, they are an excellent choice for all-natural, organic home cleaning. Just add a few teaspoons of essential oil to every ½ cup of water you use for an excellently fragrant and germ-fighting spray. It works great for mold and mildew, surface stains, and cleaning the kitchen; and has strong antibiotic and antibacterial properties.
What to look for: Items like tea tree oil, eucalyptus, lavender etc. If it has a nice smell and it comes from nature, why not? This stuff usually comes in little glass jars and is 100% organic, meaning that it’s extracted from the plant material and has no additives. There are others that might not hurt to try, just look for essential oils and dilute them in water to get surface stains looking shiny and clean again. Tea tree oil is especially good at fighting against tough mildew stains.
Vitamin C (crushed), White Vinegar, and Baking Soda – Ok, so we talked about how pure vinegar and baking soda are effective for home cleaning uses earlier. Now let’s add vitamin C into it and see what we can find. You know those orange-scented cleaners for your toilet bowl and sink? The ones full of harmful chemicals that promote certain dangers to your health, and can also be ultra-costly? Obsolete! Now you can naturally scrub those tile surfaces, marble, ceramic, and even the toilet bowl with this amazing solution that covers it all. Just take a small amount of water and add these 3 ingredients until you make a paste out of it. It works like magic, is totally safe and natural, and is also very inexpensive to make. You will be surprised by what you can make out of ordinary, everyday stuff. It’s all in picking the right ingredients and utilizing them to make your house look and smell great.
Beverly Jenkins is proud of her staff at The Tidy Maids house cleaning service in Raleigh, NC. She has 24 years of experience in house cleaning, customer service, and business operations. She knows all the tips and tricks and do-it-yourself hacks when it comes to cleaning and her clients’ homes are the best proof for that.
