DIY: Natural Household Cleaners – How To Make Them!
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DIY Natural Household Cleaners
Are you looking for some recipes for DIY Natural Household Cleaners? If so, we have a number of them here that you can make at home, with ingredients you may already have on hand!
My kids, especially my oldest, are getting to the age where they enjoy helping me. I love to indulge this stage (since I know it won’t last forever), but I have been leery to when it comes to cleaning because of the toxic cleaners. With a child with asthma in our house, we began using a number of non-toxic cleaners, but they are expensive and can really get expensive, especially when trying to keep the house clean with little kids! I really didn’t want my oldest helping due to how much he would use and how expensive it was!!
After making my own laundry soap for the past few years, I decided almost a year ago it was time to do the same with homemade cleaners. I started with a few simple recipes I found online, but honestly was disappointed in the “quality” of clean. Yes, they were cheaper but they didn’t seem to get things REALLY clean. After more research I discovered what I was missing-liquid soap! It has made a huge difference in the quality of clean I am now able to achieve. I must confess I still keep bleach and a few other “toxic” cleaner around. I still feel the need to bleach our toilets and whites now and again, but for the most part much of my cleaning even deep cleaning is done using natural or homemade products.
Now I am happy to have my oldest help me clean and not nearly as worried about how much he uses-however we do go through a LOT on those days.
My favorite liquid soap is Dr. Bonners liquid soap from Trader Joe’s or Amazon. I prefer the peppermint one, but it is also available in lavender and tea tree as well.
I have found various spray bottles at the Dollar Tree and have found they last about as long and work as well as other more expensive ones. Just like my home-made laundry soap, I mix my cleaners up and fill reusable spray bottles or containers. I keep a small Tupperware container of borax and of baking soda in each bathroom under the sinks. I highly recommend transferring them from the cardboard box they come in to plastic or glass containers. This way if the package becomes wet, they aren’t ruined.
Sink Pre-Cleaning
Sink -Post clean
Natural Household Cleaners Recipes:
All purpose Spray cleaner:
(counter tops, microwave, stove top, porcelain or ceramic surfaces)
- 1 gallon hot water (I boil mine-it helps the baking soda dissolve)
- 1 Tablespoon Baking soda
- 2 teaspoons liquid soap
Tub and toilet cleaner:
- 1/8 cup liquid soap
- ¼ cup borax
Brush and scrub on, wait 15 minutes and rinse.
Abrasive cleaner:
(I use this for my kitchen sink)
- 2 tablespoons baking soda
- 2 teaspoons liquid soap
Scrub on and let sit 5-10 minutes, rinse clean.
Hardwood, tile and linoleum floor cleaner:
- 1 gallon water
- ¼ cup liquid soap
- 1/8 cup white distilled vinegar
Wood furniture cleaner:
- ½ teaspoon olive oil
- ¼ cup lemon juice
Scented Cleaners:
If you want a scented cleaner you can also add a few drops of natural essential oils to your cleaners. See all of our essential oil posts & tips for more ideas on using essential oils in your home.
I have been experimenting with other combinations and other recipes, but these are my favorite. I love that my kids can help and I am not freaking out about chemicals.
What are some of your favorite natural cleaning recipes?
Be sure to also check out these 25 DIY Cleaner Reicipes using Essential Oils!
Here are more DIY posts you might be interested in:
- DIY Nut Butters – How to make Peanut Butter, Cashew Butter & Almond Butter
- 5 Ways to Use Coconut Oil
- DIY: Homemade Laundry Detergent
- DIY: Homemade Dishwasher Soap & Rinsing Agent
- DIY: Liquid Handsoap
- DIY: Homemade Cleaners
- Make your own Spice & Seasoning Mixes
- Homemade Espresso Drinks & Inexpensive Lattes
- Homemade Caramel Sauce
- DIY: Homemade Vanilla Extract
- DIY: Pottery Barn Inspired Growth Chart
- DIY: Make your Own Dollhouse
Find more frugal living recipes and DIY ideas here and a recipe database here.
By Contributor Sarah
Thank you for this post! I’ve been thinking about doing this for awhile and now I have all the recipes! I’m also going to try the detergent you posted about. Can’t wait!
Thanks for all the great tips! I’ve used olive oil on my kitchen cabnets and stainless steel before and it worked great. Later today I’m going to try the baking soda in my sink. Another great “green” idea I learned is for weed killer. Its pickling vinegar and a squirt of liquid dishsoap (add salt if you never want anything to grow there, like in driveway cracks) put it in a spray bottle and spray those weeds away.
Love the weed killer idea, LaceyLady! Will definitely try that for some of our hard-to-kill weeds.
I guess the weed killer works best on a sunny day. Soo if we ever get any of those here in western wa it’ll kinda be fun to try.
My youngest still has potty accidents, and I’ve found vinegar to be the only thing that reliably gets odor out of his laundry. I just pour it on in with the detergent and let it soak in hot for a while. The cheapest I’ve found it is Winco. I also saw an Oprah where Kirstie Alley, of all people, talked about using it to make fixtures shine.
We rarely get to that level of cleaning around here!
Love Sarah’s posts. Thanks for sharing them!
what kind of liquid soap? like dish washing soap?? or hand soap??
My all time best cleaner for paint, fridge, porcelain stove top, bath, basin and many other things, it s spray bottle ($store) with white vinegar and 1 tspn of liquid soap.
Take oil out of fabric (furniture or other): Using a cloth dipped in about a cup of warm water and 1/2-1 tspn of liquid soap, rub the area/s from the outside to the middle then for furniture fabric e.g., dining room chairs), rub the whole cover until it is evenly wet. When it is dry, put about 5 drops of eucalyptus oil in a cup of water and repeat the process. Allow to dry.
This worked for me on the dining room chairs – I had read many years ago that eucalyptus oil was the only known oil in the world that absorbs other oils.
White board marker – I had tried many things and finally out of desperation I picked up a tube that had a little bit of fluoridated toothpaste – Voila!
My favourite cleaner that works most of the times on pots and pans and makes glassware sparkle, stains in mugs, cleans oil off the glass window on the oven door and many more things, is baking soda and hydrogen peroxide mixed into a paste. I’ve even spotted stains on clothes before soaking in oxyclean.
One thing I always had a problem with, was clothing with any kind of tomato stains … until the day I tried a Dove bar … Voila! If you see ads for Dove, you will NOT see the word “soap” used; that is because it has the wrong pH to be called “soap.”
It’s pH is in the range for detergent and there is a specific name (cannot recall right now) for this kind of product.
Keep steel wool in a jar in the freezer after using it so rust won’t form.