easy d.i.y. recipes for household cleaning products

[val3ntine]

I finally ran out of my chemical-y products and cleaned with just vinegar (and a few drops of essential oil) today. I'm amazed by it and I love it!

Downy Wrinkle Releaser is a lifesaver for me, but I ran out of that too. I read that you can make your own by just mixing 1 tsp fabric softener to 1 cup of water. I got a free sample of fabric softener and I was going to try it, but the package says "Do not dilute with water and store" - which is exactly what I'm planning to do. What do you think is the worse that could happen? I'm ok with anything less than a massive explosion.

[blissed]

Re soap scum: We stopped using bar soap, and getting that talc out of the shower made soap scum pretty much disappear. (We bought a house with a marble shower, which looks lovely but is a pain in the a** to clean. We look for shortcuts every chance we get.)

As for killing stuff in the laundry with hot water: We wash most of our clothes on cold. We routinely do a separate hot wash of towels, sheets, diaper covers -- and every other month or so we also hot wash all our underwear, underbedding and pillows. I don't think underwear needs to get separated regularly, but we just feel better zapping everything every so often. One of my kids has a severe allergy to dust mites, and the buggers on the towels and sheets don't die unless they're in a hot wash.
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All I ate was spearmint candy
Trying to change the flavor of the days
...But oh this time the sugar was dazzling

[killr]

[Lilly-Lu]

I toally adore this thread! Really, I had no idea that you could make your own alternatives to commerical cleaning products! I thought my only alternative was to buy the expensive eco-friendly stuff at health food stores. Anyways, I am wanting to make at least the all-purpose cleaner and the laundry soap this weekend and have a few questions:

1) I would like to dispose of several cleaners and was wondering if there was a safe way to do this. Is it okay to just chuck it in the garbage? I am just not too keen on having them around anymore.

b) I am excited to naturally scent my stuff with essential oils instead of having to put up with the fake scents present in the cleaners I own. Are there particular essential oils that you would recommend? In addition, there is a person who sells scents in my town - I think similar to BPal and the like - if I found a scent that I liked, would these be safe to use to scent my cleaning solutions?

Thanks for an incredible and fascinating thread! :)

ETA: After doing some google research, I bought eucaplytus (for getting rid of dust mites and bacteria), grapefruit (cleaning and for its scent), cedarwood atlas, and lavender. I am going to try all out the recipes this weekend report back. As well, essential oils are *expensive*! :)

[Lilly-Lu]

I thought I would give this thread a little bump as well as an update on my experiments this weekend with SCG's recipes.

I made the all-purpose kitchen cleaner as well as another poster's suggestion to use the castile soap in lieu of dishsoap. For the all-purpose cleaner I used an empty Windex bottle (rinsed out quite thoroughly). At my health food store Dr. Bronner's comes in like 6 or 7 different scents and three different sizes. I chose the scentless option in the second largest size. Because I like a nice scent when I am cleaning I put in a few drops each of grapefruit essential oil and lavender essential oil. I had read as well that Eucalyptus can be used in lieu of tea tree oil as a disinfectant, so I added a few drops of that as well. I must say that the cleaner worked *amazingly*. I have some pretty heavy-duty commercial cleaners and I feel that they just don't compare to SCG's natural cleaner. Really! Plus, you get to use your own scent and vary its strength, so that is a great plus.

For dishsoap I just put in some of the castile soap. I used grapefruit oil both for the scent and cause I had read that it cuts grease just like orange oil. I also added a few drops of eucalyptus to disinfect. I think it would be good to note that castile soap doesn't bubble up as much as regular dishsoap - I kept on thinking perhaps I needed to add more because I have ingrained in my head that bubbly=effective...but, of course, I was wrong. Just a regular amount of soap does the trick. It cleans just as well as regular dishsoap. Best of all, you do not have to deal with fake 'rainforest' or 'ocean breeze' scents...you can leave it scentless or just add your own depending on your mood. I should say that I just poured the soap straight from the Dr. Bronner bottle (I did not make up a separate container of scented dishsoap).

The last trick I used that was listed in this thread was adding Eucalyptus in with our wash to disenfect and then using lavender on a damp facecloth in the dryer. I could not make the laundry soap as I am still looking for washing soda. I love how our clothes came out smelling so nice!

[tinkerbellMEOW]

[happyhats]

Lilly Lu, I tend to take the whole waste not want not concept pretty straightforward. So I'm still using my old cleaning products until they are gone and then moving on to making my own. (of course, none of my products are harsh, and most are Method products so YMMV). If you are truly done with these products, maybe you can donate them to a community service in your area like a mission or homeless shelter. I agree that it would be ideal if everyone made or used all natural products, but not everyone is to that point yet so if they would potentially buy these same products anyway why not lend a helping hand and at the same time relieve yourself of a product you have no use for?
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keep it simple

[Lilly-Lu]

Tinkerbell: Thanks for your advice. I suppose cleaners just go down the drain anyways (like, when they are mixed in water in a mop bucket)...but I guess it's probably not that great for me to dump nine or ten bottle sof undiluted cleaning solution down the drain all at once lol...

Hmmm...thanks for the tip on using salt as a disinfectant! I had no idea...I will try this ASAP :)

Happyhats: I hadn't thought of donating the cleaning supplies...great idea! Maybe I'll list them on Freecycle? A lot of charities look for stuff there.

I had thought about 'riding out' the cleaning supplies, too...I think my reasoning was 50% that I was impatient and wanted to try out SCG's recipe and 50% that I really didn't want to use the products anymore - with so many almost full bottles it would have been a while before they ran out. :)

[agsine]

You can always give cleaners that you don't finish off to a local college or other school -- even if the school has a certain brand or type that they use for cleaning the buildings themselves, teachers (and college students!) will often likely appreciate not having to buy a new bottle of windex or whatever.

ESPECIALLY college students. See if you can get in touch with a summer RA -- if they don't use it, they'll make it available for other summer students. My suitemate had a few bags full of cleaning stuff that people didn't want to drag home or put into storage, but had too much to throw out.
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[Lilly-Lu]

Hmmm...I never thought about college students! That is a great idea...after I left my dorm I gave away all my cleaning stuff to a dormmate who I thought could use it. I found out about a local place that I can call to donate to...not sure if they will take opened cleaners, but it is worth a try.

Thanks for talking me out of pouring it all down the drain...I can't believe I was going to do that (what was I thinking?).

[IrmaVep]

Ok, so stupidish question, but the only dr bronners I've found here is super expensive, and I've never seen any other liquid castile soaps (I went looking because of this thread...). Can I grate up knight's castile and melt it with water to make a liquid castile soap? Or something similar?

I wouldn't want to use it in my laundry (because I've worked out that all the thrush problems I had through childhood and teen years were likely caused by using knights castile, even though I didn't use it on my foofoo) but I figure I can use it ok as a surface cleaner.

I only have a tablespoon of SA8 left (one wash), and I want to work out whether I can do this made at home thing before I renew my amway for another year.

I'm guessing I can use sards wonder soap or a bar of sunlight soap instead of Fels Naptha, which I have never seen or heard of apart from in links from here.

[greenbutton3]

Stupid Question:

Can you still put soggy newspaper used to wash windows and mirrors in with the recycling, or just throw them away?
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[midnightsky1686]

[knits]

I've just moved this thread into happy homes rather than move it back to the archives.
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- Lucy Maud Montgomery
Swagbucks.

[IrmaVep]

Thanks knits!