As I have mentioned before, I have been on a quest to make my own natural cleaners this year. The all-purpose cleaner I made earlier this year seemed to work well. I really liked it. The smell was great and it seemed to get things clean.
As I have been researching natural homemade cleaners, however, I have learned that borax and washing soda can be somewhat harsh. I, therefore, decided I wanted to try to make a natural cleaner that didn't include borax and washing soda, but still gets things clean. While I think some cleaning jobs probably require borax and washing soda (and they are better alternatives to their toxic cleaning counterparts), I don't think I need them in an all-purpose cleaner. Researching natural homemade all-purpose cleaners I noticed that most of them include both castile soap and distilled white vinegar; which I thought sounded fine to me. BUT, after doing some further research I realized that since vinegar is an acid and castile soap is a base, they cancel each other out. Not cool. To read more about this go here.
Finding an all natural homemade all-purpose cleaner recipe without both castile soap and white vinegar proved very difficult. After much research and leaning on what I have learned thus far, I finally settled on this concoction.
Natural Homemade All-Purpose Cleaner
Ingredients
1 cup distilled white vinegar
4 Tbs lemon juice
1 cup filtered warm water
20-30 drops tea tree essential oil
You will also need an empty spray bottle (do not use one that has housed toxic cleaners) and a funnel.
Directions
Using a funnel pour all the ingredients into the spray bottle. Shake the bottle to combine all the ingredients, and the cleaner is ready to use.
This cleaner is easy to make and doesn't include ingredients that cancel each other out or cause irritation. It includes my trusted distilled white vinegar which is effective in killing mold, bacteria, and germs. Lemon juice is great degreaser and it smells good. Tea tree oil is a natural antibacterial and antifungal essential oil. To me these are all components that are great to have in an all-purpose cleaner.
