3 DIY Cleaners I Use Every Day in My Home

Welcome to the Hello Cleaner Blog my name is Melissa I am an accidental cleaning expert which means I hate cleaning but I somehow became embroiled in the cleaning game for the past 15 years and over that period of time I have learned a lot about cleaning products I know which ones you need to spend money on and which ones you can make on your own for pennies, so in this article I want to share with you the three that I make for just pennies and I use all around the house in fact you can probably clean eighty percent of your house with these three things.

A quick note on essential oils, I absolutely love using them in diy cleaners because to me cleaning sucks and smelling a lovely essential oil actually elevates the cleaning experience now essential oils can have some beneficial cleaning properties as well but I wouldn’t put all of my eggs in that basket I mean you are going to need to use other things to get your cleaning accomplished but adding essential oils will definitely elevate the experience in terms of making it smell better and you might get some additional beneficial properties from them too but they’re totally optional and you don’t have to use them.

All Purpose Cleaner: First up your all-purpose cleaner now I use this on counters cupboards I use it for general purpose cleaning dusting frankly it’s soap and water and it gets rid of most of the mess in my home so if you want to fill your spray bottle with something that you can just pick up and use in a safe manner i’m using ph neutral soap here a little bit of essential oils and water so let’s whip this up, now to the spray bottle i’m adding roughly two cups of water and when that’s done I am adding about a teaspoon of dish soap and a little tip here you wanna add your soap after you’ve added your water otherwise your water is gonna bubble up if you put the soap in first then i’m gonna drop in roughly five drops of essential oils i’m using lavender here because who doesn’t love the smell of lavender and screw it on shake it up and we probably make two bottles of this a week you spray it onto your surface you can let it sit for a minute or two and wipe it off as I said ph neutral is great because it’s safe on most surfaces.

Glass & Mirror Cleaner: You can also save money on your glass cleaner for years and years and years I have not purchased the famous blue glass cleaner in place of this recipe so i’m adding equal parts vinegar and water and to this i’m going to add a couple drops of peppermint essential oils i’m going to put about five in there now one of the things people will often say to me is hey won’t essential oils leave streaks if you’re using this on glass and mirrors and my answer is no there’s actually not enough oil in essential oils especially if you’re using five drops to actually leave a streak the thing that makes the biggest difference when it comes to streaks on mirrors and glass is the type of cloth that you’re using which is why I always recommend whenever you’re cleaning a surface like that high gloss finish or something like glass or mirror you always want to use a flat weave microfiber cloth something like this that can’t cling on to any dirt and removes all lint and streaks so what you’ll do is you’ll give this a good shake you’ll apply it and you’ll just wipe using the s pattern and you’ll see your glass and mirrors are cleaned to a beautiful shine and you don’t have to spend money on blue cleaning products anymore.

Hardwood Floor Cleaner: You might be surprised to hear that I don’t actually think we need to mop our floors all that often I think hard floors need to be swept or vacuumed regularly and spot cleaned but every now and then mopping them is important just to remove oil and dirt and other things that can build up over time I think over mopping them can actually affect the finish and the quality of the floor so if you are going to be cleaning slash mopping your floor you might use this recipe in a bucket or spray bottle depending on the type of mop that you use I recommend using a microfiber pad mop, so i’ve got two cups of water that i’m putting right here into this spray bottle and i’m going to just patiently wait for this to fill and there we are then i’m going to add a quarter cup of white vinegar too much white vinegar is not good for hardwood but a splash like this is really going to help lift up dirt and oil which is what we want then i’m going to put in about a half teaspoon of dish soap I do not need a funnel for that soap is a surfactant so again it’s going to help lift anything to the surface but too much soap leaves a sticky finish or film underfoot which you don’t want and i’m just going to add a few drops of essential oils here what you’ll do is shake this up apply it section by section to the floor that you’re going to be cleaning and then going in a w pattern with your mop working along the grain and working your way out of the room instead of into a corner now if you don’t have hardwood floors let’s say you have tile or laminate or vinyl I got you we just did a article on different diy floor cleaners.

When you think about the cost of an average cleaning product that comes in a spray bottle you’re looking at anywhere from say 20 Aed to 50 Aed a bottle not to mention the amount of plastic that those bottles waste once you’re finished using them and you get rid of them so that is one of the reasons why I love making diy cleaners of course that it’s a more environmentally friendly way to go but also it saves you so much money. Thanks so much for reading and we’ll see you next time.