Home cleaning should’t be a hassle. While commercial cleaning solutions are convenient as you simply buy them and use them, they can actually be detrimental to your health and the environment.
Commercial cleaning solutions typically have chemicals and other ingredients that are non-biodegradable, and can harm the environment when it gets into soil and waterways.
Instead, reach for safe, eco-friendly ingredients, like vinegar and lemons, to create your own home cleaning products that are just as effective as commercial ones, without breaking the bank or harming the environment. All these recipes are safe for pets and kids, too! So you can clean your home without worrying!
No time to clean? Opt for a reputable cleaning service that will use your natural cleaning products to upkeep your home the green way. Luce Home services offers expert eco-friendly cleaning and maintenance services and offer the following great tips:
1. Multi-purpose Cleaner
Take a spray bottle and fill half of it with vinegar, and the other half with clean water. Voila! You’ve made an effective multi-purpose cleaner that dissolves soap scum, removes stains, deodorizes, gets rid of mineral deposits, breaks down grease spills, and cleans pots and pans without effort.
Keep the vinegar spray on hand for quick cleaning, or use it all over your bathroom tiles to finally get rid of the mold growing between the grout. For a stronger solution, add a couple of tablespoons of baking soda to the solution. You’ll never need another cleaning solution again!
2. DIY Safe and Effective Marble Cleaner
Marble and other natural stones make your home look sophisticated and elegant, but when they have off-putting etch marks and dirt on them, they can do the complete opposite of the intended effect. Commercial stone-safe cleaners, however, can be expensive and full of ingredients that may be harmful to your health.
One of the best homemade cleaning solutions for marble and other natural stones is one of the simplest. A mixture of liquid castile soap and water creates a floor and surface cleaner that can be used to remove the oils, grime, and dust from your marble surfaces! Plus, castile soap is a completely natural, eco-friendly material made from 100% plant oils.
You can even add essential oils of your choice to make a scented version of your DIY marble cleaning solution, or leave it unscented for a neutral smell. Castile soap is sure to keep your marble surfaces clean without dangers of etching or scratching!
3. Kitchen Board Scrubber
Did you know that your chopping board is hosting millions of potentially harmful bacteria? Whenever you chop raw ingredients, miniscule traces of food particles can get deep into the grooves of your kitchen chopping board. These serve as food for different forms of bacteria, some of which can make you sick.
However, you don’t need any fancy tools to clean the grooves of your chopping boards. The things you need are already in your kitchen: just half a lemon, and some rock salt! Our favorite hack? Mix both rock salt and table salt for a varied abrasive action that cleans even the most narrow grooves. Use the lemon to scrub the salt into the board to clean it.
4. Essential Oil Carpet Refresher
Are your carpets starting to smell musty and old? Don’t reach for those commercial carpet powders! Commercial powders are filled with chemicals and fragrances that do not biodegrade, and can leach harmful substances into the environment.
Instead, use a homemade essential oil carpet refresher with only two ingredients: baking soda, and pure, all-natural essential oils (skip the essential oils if you have pets as they can be poisonous). Place no more than 6 drops of essential oil into a cup of baking soda, and mix well until everything is incorporated. The mixture should still feel powdery and not at all greasy.
Use the mixture all over your carpet to refresh them and give them a pleasant smell. Baking soda is a biodegradable ingredient that deodorizes fabrics, and dries out the source of the smell, while the essential oils provide a pleasant aroma.
5. Reusable Toilet Cleaner
A reusable toilet cleaner may not sound pleasant, but we’re talking about a revolutionary material that is both natural and sustainable: Pumice Stones! Pumice stones are naturally-occurring rocks that are made with volcanic material. These stones have a lot of pores in them, which makes them ideal to use as an abrasive scrubber.
Pumice stones are the same ones used to remove dead skin from the soles of your feet at a salon, but there are elongated pumice stones that are meant to be used as a scrubber for your toilet! Toilet brushes are typically made from pure plastic, which never biodegrades, and cannot remove tough stains from your toilet.
A pumice stone is both natural, and can be used over and over again as long as the stone is intact! Use a pumice stone to lightly remove stains from your toilet, and you’ll never have to handle another dirty toilet brush again! Plus, a pumice stone can be disinfected with common household sanitizers too!