Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Homemade: Natural cleaners

With a new baby around, I've become more concerned about chemicals. In an effort to be more natural, I decided to try and make my own cleaner. I got this recipe for Wonder Spray from a professional cleaning lady who uses only homemade, "green" cleaners.


Wonder Spray
8 oz white vinegar
8 oz water
8-12 drops essential oil (optional)

I put it to the test on my very greasy stovetop (don't judge me) and have to admit I wasn't that pleased with the results, including the fact that even with some jasmine essential oil, the spray still left a vinegar-y aroma. Maybe Wonder Spray wasn't meant for destroying grease. The instructions do say that it is good for countertops, wood furniture (in small quantities), bathrooms (toilet bowl, shower doors, hard water stains), stainless steel and mirrors. Do not use on natural stone.

The nasty before:


The improved-but-still-needs-work after:

This one corner has built-up grease that just doesn't want to come off.



I decided to up the cleaning factor with an all-purpose spray that uses baking soda and supposedly works on grease.

All-Purpose Cleaner
1 tbsp baking soda
2 tbsp white vinegar
16 ounces water

The results: The baking soda added a little more kick and got out a few more spots than just the vinegar and water, but was still lacking.

My conclusion: for light cleaning, natural cleaners work well. For heavy-duty messes, I'm still sticking to the hard stuff. Unless anyone else has a recipe for a more effective homemade cleaner?

2 comments:

MamaD said...

I use Seventh Generation for my countertop and stovetop cleaning and I feel like I need a lot to really cut the grease. I've used Greenworks in the past before but I am a little skeptical of how "green" it is although it worked fine. At least you have a black stovetop so that it doesn't show as much.

Puanani Tagoai said...

I started using Melaleuca products when I was expecting Eden, and while it's a little more costly, the product IS concentrated so it lasts a long time. And it's all natural. Sorry - no homemade recipes to offer!