What you use to clean your home can have a direct effect on you and your family's health and wellness. Many cleaners, even those claiming they are green or natural, have chemicals in them that can be harmful to you and your family's health. While yes, we want our cleaners to be effective and do a good job, we don't want them to cause skin, lung and eye irritation, disrupt our hormones or increase our risk of cancer. Scary to think about but there are lots of cleaners out there on the market that have chemicals in them that cause all of the things I just mentioned.
As I have went down the rabbit hole of ingredients and label reading over the years, I have found two things. There are products out there that have clean ingredients in them that work and there is also almost always a DIY alternative that you can make for a lot less than buying in store.
After a lot of research and some trial and error, I have found 3 natural cleaners that you can feel good about using in your home, actually work and are affordable too:). All of these cleaners use minimal ingredients and can be whipped up in under 5 minutes, quite honestly once you have made them a couple of times you can get it down to under 2 minutes.
All three of these cleaners are meant to be multi surface cleaners so you can use them on a variety of surfaces which will cut down on the cost as well since you will no longer need to buy multi products to clean with. Here are the three cleaners I suggest:
Vinegar Based Cleaner - For this cleaner you will take one part water to one part white vinegar and add them to a 16oz Spray Bottle, preferably a glass one, along with 15 drops of Lemon Essential Oil. Vinegar and Lemon both are well known for their cleansing properties so they are the perfect combo for a DIY multipurpose cleaner. The Lemon essential oil also helps with combatting the smell of the Vinegar.
If the smell of Vinegar is not your jam, then one of the next two cleaners may be a better option for you:)
Alcohol Based Cleaner- For this recipe, you just sub out the Vinegar for Isopropyl Alcohol, so one part Isopropyl Alcohol to One part water in a 16oz Spray Bottle and then add in 15 drops of Lemon essential oil. You can also sub out the lemon for any other citrus. Some of my favorites to use in cleaners are grapefruit and lemongrass. If you are not a fan of citrus oils you could also use eucalyptus, tea tree or clove as they also have great cleansing properties.
Thieves HouseHold Cleaner - The final cleaner I will mention is a premade cleaning concentrate from Young Living.
The Thieves Household cleaner can be used on any surface and is effective and affordable. It is an all natural plant based cleaner and one bottle of the cleaning concentrate makes 28 bottles of Thieves Household cleaner. To use, place one capful of the Thieves Household Cleaner in a 16oz spray bottle and then top off with distilled water.
Shake and it is ready to use:). This cleaner contains essential oils like lemon, clove, cinnamon and eucalyptus so it does already have a really pleasant scent but you can add additional essential oils to it if you want to change up the smell of it sometimes.
All of these cleaners are simple to make, effective and affordable so it is really up to your personal preference which one you choose to use in your home. The majority of the time I personally use the Thieves Household cleaner, but I will occasionally switch it up and use either the isopropyl alcohol or vinegar cleaner instead if I am in the mood for a change.
If you try any or all of these cleaners leave a comment and let me know what you thought:)
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