Make your own cleaning products
Common household items can be used as green alternatives
THE blonde was giving me her “do-you-know-what-you’redoing?” look, which in 40 years of marital bliss seemingly has become commonplace.
Responding to her household cleaning request, her favorite guy was offering a mixture of warm water and baking soda in a discarded coffee container and a spray bottle solution of equal parts white vinegar and water.
The mission: Degrease the glasstile backsplash behind the gas range top.
She wanted to use some caustic commercial cleaner. Her favorite guy advised a natural cleaning alternative.
For perhaps 25 years now, the masculine side of our union has pushed using natural cleaners. The feminine has resisted.
“You buy it,” she says of the commercial cleaners. “It’s in a bottle. You spray it. It’s easy.” Take a guess as to who is ahead on the score sheet.
So each time I’m able to show her a green alternative becomes a minor victory. Of course, positive results are imperative.
Cleaning supplies were among some of the products vanishing from retailers’ shelves in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, but because we’ve always kept our household shelves pretty well-stocked, we were in good shape. But what happens when you run out of items like glass cleaner, laundry detergent and dishwasher soap? What would you do?
Well, make your own, of course. And if you do make your own, you will find savings galore. Homemade cleaners are inexpensive to make and easy to store.
For Becky Rapinchuk, a Chicago-area mom and green-cleaning advocate who operates the Clean Mama website, it’s a matter of keeping her home free of toxic cleaners. Her daughter, 14, was a year old when she sprayed a commercial cleaner on herself and had a bad reaction. So after contacting poison control and monitoring her daughter for 24 hours, Rapinchuk decided to go green to clean.
“You’re not introducing toxic chemicals into your home. You control what you’re cleaning with and make what you need when you need it,” Rapinchuk said.
She said the pandemic has magnified the convenience angle. “People aren’t going out to stores, so if they find that something in the house is disgustingly dirty, they can try household items first.”
Most of the time, the homemade cleaner does just as good a job as the more expensive commercial cleaner, she said.
Rapinchuk said she is most often asked about cleaning kitchen sinks, and her suggestion is scrubbing with a paste of baking soda, liquid dish soap and an essential oil.
As for more formulas, apologies first. None here for homemade toilet paper or paper towels. But if you keep white vinegar, baking soda, ammonia and some other items handy — borax, washing soda and Oxiclean are recommended — you often can mix your way into a solution. No pun intended.
One note of caution: Never mix cleaning agents without following a safe, proven formula. Combining some cleaners — chlorine bleach and ammonia, for example — can create toxic gas.
As for the blonde and the greasy glass-tile backsplash, mission accomplished.
We covered the range top in a layer of cardboard and some old towels. Using a terry cloth, we gently rubbed the baking soda solution into the greasy areas, as if we were polishing a car. We wiped with another damp rag and then removed the baking soda residue with the vinegar solution, wiping dry with another clean cloth.
Oh, and did it work. Because lately, I’ve been getting that other look. You know, the one where her blue eyes sparkle and go wink-wink.
Now, for the recipes: or burned foods on pots and pans and in your oven. Mix baking soda with water to make a paste slightly more liquid than toothpaste. Gently rub into the stained areas. Clean the powdery residue with some white vinegar in a spray bottle.
Also, you can use a similar watery paste of baking soda to clean soap scum from shower stalls and bathtubs. I’ve also used it on glass shower doors, although many tell me the baking soda is abrasive and will scratch the glass.
It hasn’t done that to my glass doors yet. But to be safe, test by rubbing the paste on an out-of-sight corner first to see if it leaves scratches.
Remember, a solution of white vinegar and water will remove any leftover powdery residue.
As for white vinegar, it’s a terrific hair rinse in our hard-water environment. Make a spray bottle of three parts water to one part vinegar and keep it in your shower. Spray on your hair after you’ve rinsed away the shampoo. Be sure your last rinse is with water.
A 50-50 mix of vinegar and water does wonders for flat panel TV screens, too.
Use a microfiber cloth to gently wipe away dust from the screen, then use another microfiber cloth dipped in the solution to clean the screen. Finally, wipe dry with another microfiber cloth.