Cleaning the Homemade Way

There has been a rise in interest in becoming friendlier to our environmental in the recent past. This interest in going 'green' involves not only recycling household items and furniture but also cleaning products. There has been an influx of natural cleaning products arriving on the shelves of the local stores.

I began to look around to see what types of solutions you could make at home with products you normally have readily available in your own kitchen. The ingredients need to be not only environmentally friendly but also inexpensive and readily available. I came up with the following homemade cleaning solutions. Believe it or not they work as well as the store bought cleaning products and with less caustic action.

Ingredients:

1 cup borax

1/2 cup white vinegar

Directions:

Flush toilet to make sure all sides are wet.

Sprinkle borax around toilet bowl.

Drizzle with vinegar.

Let set overnight for a scrub free cleaning.

Ingredients:

1 lb brown sugar

1 cup hot water

2 tsp dried yeast

Directions:

Dissolve brown sugar in hot water and set aside until lukewarm.

Stir in yeast and immediately flush down toilet.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp baking soda

1/4 cup vinegar or lemon juice

Directions:

Once a week to prevent clog build-ups and odor place baking soda down the drain.

Slowly pour the vinegar or lemon juice and let set for 30 minutes.

Rinse thoroughly with hot running water.

Note: You can also make a strong salt solution and pour it down the drain occasionally to help with odor and grease build-up.

Have you ever though of using Hydrogen Peroxide as a cleaner? It's inexpensive, safe to use around children and pets, and oh so convenient. Just about everyone has a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide in their bathroom cabinet.

It kills germs, bacteria, fungus, and yes it also kills mold and mildew. Plus, good news, it is listed with the Environmental Protection Agency as a sterilizer.

All you have to do is pour the Hydrogen Peroxide into a opaque spray bottle, add a few drops of essential oil, to make it smell nice and go to work.

Did you know that you could practically clean your house from stem to stern with one handy ingredient that most of us have in the home? That's right. Distilled White Vinegar is one handy thing to have hanging around your house.

It can clean toilets, shower heads, windows, floors, help white clothes, and so many, many more things. It is a powerful little cleaner.

Another handy little item that we all keep in our cabinets is baking soda. Baking soda is a powerful stain remover. Yet it is gentle enough to brush your teeth with. If you leave water and baking soda in a pan with burnt on food overnight, presto change it will come off the pan easily.

Pour baking soda down a clogged drain and on top of that pour some distilled white vinegar on top of it and within minutes that clog will be gone.