I've begun experimenting with home made cleaning products and I'll be posting my recipes and results. This first post is a trifecta of Faux-Febreeze, Glass Cleaner and a Multipurpose Cleaner. I've a few friends who are willing to be guinea pigs for my experiments. So I should be able to share some unbiased reviews and a range of opinions.Making products myself makes sense to me for several reasons
- it's inexpensive
- easy to customize scents and tweak recipes for personal preferences
- less packaging waste
- fewer trips to the store
- peace of mind knowing exactly what chemicals are (or are not) in a product
My plan right now is to make homemade products as I run out of my store bought products. I'll keep playing with recipes until I find ones I love.
Faux-Febreeze
4 tbsp of vodka
4 cups of distilled water
1 tsp essential oil
This is really simple, mix the ingredients, pour into a squirt bottle and shake it up. The fragrance possibilities here are really limitless, I used two for my first trial. 1/2tsp of grapefruit essential oil and 1/2 tsp of a citrus blend called Invigorating. Shake before use each time, in the first minute or so you can very faintly smell the vodka but it fades quickly. I like this one so far, we'll see how long the scent lasts.
Glass Cleaner
1 cup rubbing alcohol
1 cup white distilled vinegar
1 cup distilled water
This is really simple, mix the ingredients, pour into a squirt bottle and shake it up. Are you noticing a trend here? These are so easy to make. This mix is perfect, it left my mirrors streak free the first time so I didn't have to go over them again. It drys very quickly too which I love. I'm considering adding a little blue food coloring, I can't seem to shake the feeling that window cleaner must be blue.
All Purpose Cleaner
2 cups of water
1 tsp borax
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp lemon juice
Mix ingredients, starting with the water, you'll get some fizzing when you add the lemon juice. I used this to clean my kitchen counters and sink, it worked well but I prefer a stronger scent. I added a few drops of grapefruit essential oil and now it's great. The real test will come when I clean a bathtub with it, but so far so good.
