There are many common household products and ingredients which can be used effectively used as natural cleaning products. These products are used to clean, deodorize, and/or disinfect the home with their natural ingredients and are less damaging to the environment and safer for humans and pets than conventional chemical cleaning products.
Some Home Ingredients- Baking Soda: Mix ¼ cup of baking soda in 1 quart water and use as an all-purpose cleaner. It acts as an abrasive, removing silver pan marks from the kitchen sink, black marks from the linoleum, and the ring around the tub. Just use a little on a damp sponge and scrub.
- Vinegar: Mix half of vinegar and half with water and use on all nonporous surfaces. Use on glass and wipe dry with a soft cloth. You can also use it to clean floors. (DO NOT use on tile since it eats away grout).
- Salt: You salt to scrub stains from counter tops. Pour on grease spills to absorb grease and prevent staining. Sprinkle on oven spills while they are still warm. Then sprinkle some water and scrape off when cool. Dissolve in vinegar and use on nonporous surfaces.
- Lemon Juice: It can be applied on stains and after sometime scrub it. For more information on lemon, please see Handy Tips of using Lemons
Natural Disinfecting
You can add lemon juice or vinegar to a gallon of water to wash windows, floors and toilets to scrub away the germs.
Cleaning Metal Surfaces
- Put some water in a pan with a few teaspoons of washing soda, bring to a simmer. Throw in a little piece of aluminum foil, and then dip your silver right into the mix. Pull the product out, dry it, and wipe with a rag and shine it clean.
- For chrome, iron, copper, use lemon juice. You can also combine a few tablespoons of lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of baking soda, you have a great brass and copper cleaning agent.
Air Freshener
Dissolve baking soda in 2 cups of hot water. Add lemon juice, store it in a spray bottle and spray into air as room freshener.
And let us not forget and underestimate the power of nature’s most effective cleaner: Elbow grease. Use a plain cloth, dip it in a little hot water, and use your own muscle for most cleaning tasks.
- Baking Soda: Odor absorber, abrasive cleaner, all purpose cleaner
- Vinegar: Odor-causing bacteria killer, hard-water stain and mineral deposit remover, all purpose cleaner
- Salt: Abrasive cleaner, all-purpose cleaner
- Lemon & Lemon Juice: Odor control, furniture polish, natural color-safe bleach, remove odors.
- Corn starch: Starches clothes, absorbs oil and grease.
- Tooth paste: Mild abrasive.
- Washing soda: Cleans clothes, softens clothes, cuts grease and disinfects, increases the cleaning power of soap.
- Borax: A natural mineral that kills bacteria. Removes stains, deodorizers and can be used as an alternative to bleach.
- Herbs and Essential Oil: For disinfecting and fragrance
Some Handy Tips: All-Purpose Cleaning, Scrubbing, and Stain Removal
