Since I am work­ing on clean­ing up my house as well as my life I thought I would share my favorite green clean­ing recipes. I’d always been leery of home­made clean­ing recipes because I hate the smell of vine­gar. But I decid­ed to give it a go after a par­tic­u­lar­ly bad expe­ri­ence with a clean­ing prod­uct called 409.  I was on my old boat and just quick­ly scrubbed the walls in the salon when the chem­i­cal fumes became so unbear­able that I devel­oped a hor­ri­ble headache and start­ed to feel ill. I hate to sit in the cock­pit with all the ports and hatch­es open for over an hour before I could go back in to the boat. While the prob­lems with clean­ing chem­i­cals become more appar­ent in a space the size of a large clos­et that does­n’t mean that they aren’t still there when you are clean­ing your house. Not only will this be a health­i­er alter­na­tive for both you and the envi­ron­ment, but it will be cheap­er too. And who does­n’t like to save money?

 

Home­made Cit­rus Clean­er- This is the clean­ing recipe that I use the most. I have to admit that to being amazed at how well this works. I ful­ly expect­ed that I would be scrub­bing much hard­er that if I had been using a chem­i­cal laden clean­er, but that isn’t the case at all.  The orange peels also keep the clean­er from smelling like vine­gar. You can still catch a slight whiff, but only if you are real­ly pay­ing attention.

 

Home­made Lemon Scent­ed All Pur­pose Clean­er-  This one is very sim­i­lar to the one above, but with the addi­tion of bak­ing soda and instead of soak­ing the orange peel you just add fresh lemon juice. Even with­out soak­ing the peel for two weeks it still does­n’t have an over­whelm­ing vine­gar scent.

 

Home­made Bleach- Hydro­gen Per­ox­ide is great for killing bac­te­ria. While not quite as strong as bleach this is a great eco-friend­ly alter­na­tive.  And one that you can use with­out hav­ing to be quite so para­noid about splash­ing on your clothes.

 

Home­made Leather Clean­er- I have nev­er used this. I don’t have any leather fur­ni­ture, but I thought I would add it in here. The last time I bought leather clean­er for my car seats it smelled awful. My car smelled for over a week.

 

Home­made Dish Soap-  Here are two dish recipes one for hand wash­ing and one for a dish­wash­er. I don’t have a dish­wash­er, but love Dr. Bron­ner’s soap for wash­ing dishes.