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Whenever I’m winding down my day, in a house full of noise ALL DAY, I kinda go into the zone like Monica. Granted, it’s not as obsessively neurotic, but it’s the thought that counts. Because to be honest, the internet says it best when it comes to cleaning.
“Cleaning with kids in your house is like brushing your teeth with Oreos.” Jokes apart, when it comes to cleaning liquids, you can’t buy enough. No matter how much Windex or Chlorox wipes you think you have, you end up coming short. Fret not ladies and gentlemen!
These homemade cleaners are made of ingredients you already have at home, and you can stay in those PJ’s without making a trip to the store.
1. Essential Oil Cleanser
Looking for ways to cut the stovetop grease, but trying to avoid using chemicals that make your eyes burn? Plus the fact that you’ve got kids running around, doesn’t make strong chemicals the best option.
Combine about 2 cups of white vinegar and water, each. Add 20 drops of tea tree oil and 20 drops of lemon essential oil. If you don’t have one or the other, leave it out.
2. Glass Cleaner
Glass fogs up pretty quickly and gets greasy more often than you’d think. It’s also the first element that is looked at when you have people over! Oops, rookie mistake. You may think that a little bit of cleaner can just clean the grime away, but it’ll just get dirty again.
Form a mixture of 50% vinegar and an equal part of water to really get the grease off your windows. A clean window is a happy window.
3. All-Purpose Cleaner
All-purpose cleaners are kinda like the cousin that your parents compare you to. “She does it all! Dance, sing, karate, AP classes, AND get’s all A’s. Oh, and did I mention she’s volunteering in the soup kitchen too?” Let’s be real. This cousin is super annoying to talk to, but get’s the job done like an all-purpose cleaner!
In a spray bottle, mix in 3 cups of warm water, and 1 tablespoon of baking soda, borax, and glycerine each. The baking soda and borax really cut through the grease due to their alkalinity.
4. Scouring Cleaner
It’s quite easy to make a scouring cleaner. Because at some point, you really have to clean your grill oven so that it doesn’t resemble Freddy Kruger.
Seriously, it’s just a 1:1 ratio of baking soda and water until it forms a paste. Let the paste sit on the said stain and rest for a while before you clean it with a steel scrubber. The baking soda is a natural disinfectant but not to the point where you’re choking on toxic fumes!
5. Stainless Steel Cleaner
Stainless steel can usually be cleaned by simply using dish soap. But sometimes, dish soap isn’t helpful enough with the sticky food residues, or some grease accumulated over time.
Apparently, all I had to do was spray a little bit of vinegar over it, or any other steel surface that my sponge had the misfortune of meeting. Wipe it down once with vinegar and with warm water the second time. You can even use vinegar regularly as your natural stainless steel cleaner (do away with the dish soaps and go chemical-free).
6. Grout Cleaner
Doesn’t matter how much you clean your house floor every day, there is a part of the floor that still requires special attention (yeah, it is tough). This is the part between the tiles, the lines between the tiles which are filled with cement (but eventually ends up being filled with dirt as well).
Here’s the solution to its toughness: 1/2 cup of baking soda, 1/4 cup of hydrogen peroxide, and 1 teaspoon of liquid dish soap. The bonus is these are all pretty much-cleaning staples, safe to use around kids, and cut through grease. I call that a win-win-win. To prepare the solution, add hydrogen peroxide to baking soda followed by adding liquid dish soap to the prepared solution. Scrub the solution on grout lines and let it stay for 5 minutes before cleaning it off for getting sparkling grout lines.
7. Wood Cutting Board Cleaner
Cleaning a wood board isn’t as hard as you think it as. Especially because most of the cleaning is done while it soaks, which is a great technique for lazy people like me! Combine white vinegar with water in a 1:4 ratio and soak the board in this mixture. The grease and dirt will slide right off that bad boy, and you’ll be cleaning the board like a boss in no time.
I can confidently say that these cleaners won’t take more than 10 minutes, each, to prepare. This cuts the number of times you attempt to use the store-bought cleaners on these surfaces, whereas homemade cleaners finish the job.