Trying Organic Cleaners

So as my Lysol wipes dwindled, my dish washing detergent was getting low, and then my Tide was struggling to come out of the bottle. I remembered something a friend has posted. It's a girl I knew back in high school who lives in North Carolina. Her name is Mindy and if you aren't following her already then you should start now, colemans in love. Now she has this tutorial on how to make your own all-purpose cleaner, http://colemansinlove.blogspot.com/2011/02/make-your-own-all-purpose-cleaner.html.

Go there now.

Make this cleaner.

I made two different bottles. One is a very basic cleaner and one if the "deep, disinfecting cleaner".

Basic Cleaner:

Vinegar

Water

Put in a ratio of 2:1, water to vinegar. I left it at that and started cleaning. As Mindy states the vinegar smell goes away and it cleans really well. Apparently, the hubby did not want to wait a few minutes for the smell to go away. He complained right away. Easy fix here if you don't want to wait for the smell to go away. I added 10 drops of lavender oil. You could add whatever you wanted but I hand lavender handy. Surprisingly, it neutralized the smell. It didn't have any scent to it. I haven't cleaned my mirrors yet but I'll let you know if it streaks.

Deep Cleaner:

Vinegar

Water

Castile Soap

Tea Tree Oil

This is made the same way as the basic cleaner. 2:1 ratio of water to vinegar, then add a squirt of castile soap and about 10-20 drops of castile soap.

Now I decided to make a test. It just so happens that last night the puppy ran in after playing the kiddy pool we bought and running through the mud. He jumps onto the black leather chair and leaves cute little brown foot prints all over it. I even have a picture of the evidence.

I used the basic cleaner on the left and my deep cleaner on the right. Here is the after picture.

Now I didn't clean the front so it's still dirty but the top of the arms and everything else is clean. The both cleaned really well. In my opinion the deep cleaner was a little easier on the hard spots but it did take a little bit longer to dry.

I have some advise about this natural cleaning that most of you probably realized but I didn't think about it. Don't use paper towels. Use a rag or a dish towel, really anything but a paper towel. Whatever you use it on will have white dust all over it when you're done. Totally the opposite effect that you want.

I'll have more to post on soon. I'm working on a lot of projects right now. Here is a sneak peak of quite a few them. Stay tuned for more fun stuff :)

TTFN