There are some eco-brands that I use for home cleaning, but as it’s the season of spring cleaning I thought I’d share some eco-ideas that have multi-uses and reduce the need for lots of different products using lots of packaging. This is a mini series so part one covers vinegar, lemon, bicarb and salt and part two will be back with borax and more!
Natural Cleaning
Vinegar – cuts through grease and limescale
Fill your kettle with a cup of distilled white vinegar and leave overnight to tackle limescale, rinse thoroughly the next day.
A mix of equal quantities of white vinegar and water make an effective floor cleaner
You can clean your windows with white vinegar and rub dry with a newspaper scrunched up to get rid of any marks
Lemons are your friend!
They give a really fresh smell when you integrate them into your cleaning regime
When we moved in to our flat the taps were limescaley and nothing shifted it, I cut a lemon in two and jammed each half over the end of the tap and left for two hours, when I came back the scale just rubbed away!
Lemon juice cleans stains from cutting boards rub the juice full strength onto the stain and let sit until the stain fades, then rinse and dry
You can clean hard water marks on glass shower doors with half a lemon
Bicarbonate of soda
Make a paste with a tablespoon of bicarb and water and pop it on a cloth to clean your sink, sparkling!
Repeat this to make a cleaning paste for pots and pans, to remove stains from cups and clean tarnished silver
A cup of bicarb in your fridge absorbs fridge odours
To clean grout make up a paste of 2 parts bicarb, one part vinegar or lemon juice (this will fizz!) apply the paste with a toothbrush, leave for 10 minutes and then rinse
Dampen the floor of your oven, sprinkle with bicarb and dampen again. Leave the mixture overnight then remove with a cloth and rinse with warm water
Table salt
Salt doesn’t scratch so it’s great for glassware, add some salt to a stain for extra abrasion and scrub
Pour salt mixed with hot water down your kitchen sink every few weeks to deodorize and keep grease from building up
A great one for coffee lovers, add salt and ice cubes to your stained coffee pot, swirl around for a minute and rinse, it scrubs away those stains!
This is great! I kind of knew some of this stuff, but not the exact details so great to have it all down in one place. Thank you!
These are really great tips, thanks for sharing. Need some lemons! x
Your tips are really good.
These are great tips! I definitely agree with using newspapers for windows
must try using the lemons on my cutting boards x
thanks for tips, im in a cleaning mode these days (nesting) and these tips will help me to spend less money and have a maximum result
Love these tips…especially the lemon with limescale, I must try that out as I love the smell of lemons. (And I LOVE that little worm dangling down the side of my screen – so sweet!!)
We try to use natural cleaners like these. A solution of bicarb & water can help clean up spilt milk or vomit. We also use lavender to help sweeten/keep clean bathrooms!
This tips are really helpful thank you!! Will be giving the taps a go with the lemons!
the amount of cleaning up i do i should save my self some money and go homemade x great post hun thankyou for the tips x
I’m a big fan of lemon and bicarb and I love my micro fibre cloths – they work miracles when I’m cleaning x x
Great ideas for a natural cleaning solutions.
thank you for sharing
I have started using natural cleaning products and was surprised by just how effective they actually are
I’m going to try the vinegar and water one for my floors. We’ve had new lino and it’s really awful to keep clean. I’ve tried different floor cleaners but it’s a nightmare. Hope this one works
Oh these are fantastic ideas. Half tempted now to tip some white vinegar down our loo!
Pingback: Baby steps towards a more natural lifestyle - Happy Healthy Mumma