Natural Cleaning Products to Make Yourself

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Making your own homemade natural cleaning products can save you a ton of money AND give you peace of mind that you are not using toxic products in your home. Find out more.

Why do we want to avoid conventional cleaners? There are so many reasons. These products contain many substances that are harmful to our health in a number of ways. They may cause diseases like cancer and autoimmune diseases.

They may be antibacterial which may cause the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Conventional cleaners may have harmful ingredients like fragrances that cause headaches, lethargy, foggy thinking, loss of energy and other side effects.

Conventional cleaners have a number of dangers and these dangers are even more concentrated for babies and young children as their growing bodies are more susceptible to harm. 

There are many healthier choices you can make for a much healthier environment in your home. It’s not that hard to make your own natural cleaners, they work well and they are less expensive. There are also many nontoxic cleaners available on the market if you do a little looking. They tend to be more expensive than conventional products, so if you’re concerned with your budget, it’s simple to make your own.

How to make natural cleaning products

I love using vinegar for all types of cleaning. It disinfects, dries without streaks and it really works! I feel good knowing I’m using a natural product that won’t make my kids or family sick. It’s the superhero of natural cleaners.

I use vinegar for all of my mirrors, windows, doors, and any other glass. I make a spray bottle with vinegar and essential oils and use it for tons of household cleaning. It has a strong smell, but that dissipates really quickly, within 20 minutes or so.

Fill a spray bottle with plain old white vinegar for the ultimate natural cleaning products. It doesn’t matter if you use name brand or generic, it’s all the same.  Then add about 15 drops of whatever essential oils you like. You can use the vinegar plain, but it’s more fun to add some oils. I like to use citrus oils like lemon, citrus bliss, or lime because it leaves a fresh, pleasant scent and those oils have cleaning properties of their own.

If you want a relaxing scent, you can use lavender. If you want to feel awake and alive, try peppermint for extra cleaning energy.

We use this natural cleaner to do windows, but we also clean our countertops, and the front of our appliances and cabinet doors, wipe down the walls, and even mop the floor. It gets up any film on the floor and dries super clean. No streaks, no mess.

I even dust with this mixture. Moisten the dust before I rub it off so it doesn’t puff up into the air. There’s a lot of dust in my house between the kids and the cats and it gets puffy in two days. I spray the vinegar onto the surface and quickly wipe it off.

If my furniture needs a quick restoration, I put a small amount of olive oil on a rag and squeeze a squeeze of lemon juice on it. It conditions wood wonderfully and leaves it super clean and fresh. Forget the pledge that’s full of chemicals and fragrances that can make you sick. Nothing to worry about here with these natural cleaners.

We use this same natural cleaning product to clean our bathroom surfaces, mirrors, toilet bowl and seat, sink, doorknobs, light switches and any other surface you can think of.

If you need a little extra scrubbing power for shower cleaning or toilet cleaning, first sprinkle on some baking soda and scrub with a moist brush or rag and then spray on the vinegar and give it another swish. The reaction between the baking soda and vinegar has even more cleaning power AND it’s a great drain cleaner.

Natural products for cleaning

Whatever I can’t clean with plain vinegar in the kitchen can also be solved with some simple nontoxic household ingredients. Just like the toilet scrubbing, you can sprinkle baking soda in the sink and scrub, then spray on your vinegar spray and scrub while you rinse it down the sink, cleaning the drain as it goes. Two for one natural cleaner.

If you have a tough pot to scrub, you can sprinkle the mess with salt and scrub it off with half of a lemon. You’ll be amazed at how well this works. You can also use luffas to scrub dishes or these other dish scrubbers that are made with things you already have. 

For cleaning your granite, check out this simple mixture.

To freshen the carpet, just sprinkle it with baking soda. Let it set a few minutes and then vacuum up. It will freshen the whole area.

If you spill something on your carpet, soak up as much as you can with a towel, spray your vinegar cleaner on the stain and scrub. Then place a towel on the spot and stand on it for about 10 minutes. If you don’t have time, set something heavy on the towel. When you come back, it should be gone. If it’s not all the way gone, repeat the process until the stain or odor comes up. Skip the toxic carpet cleaners and save a ton of money too.

Mold grows in spores, so you can stop the growth by killing those spores. Then you just need to remove the mold stains and you’ll have beat the mold problem. Here’s how.

Another thing I love to use my vinegar mixture for is cleaning toys! I clean a LOT of toys for the daycare kids. I want to disinfect them but I don’t want to use harmful bleach to do it. We are required by DHS regulations to use bleach but I have a waiver because it causes me respiratory distress.

For vinegar cleaning, just put toys in the dishwasher or sink or a large tub and spray with the same vinegar mixture described above. Let the toys soak in the mixture for a few minutes. Check for dirt on the toys and wipe that clean with a damp rag, but if there is not physical dirt on the toys, just let them air dry like you would have with bleach.

Many toys will go into the dishwasher like stacking cups or other toys that don’t retain water. You can just run them through a cycle either with a small cup of vinegar in a cup on the top rack that will fall over into the load as the toys wash or you can sanitize them with the hot drying cycle. Be careful you don’t use that on toys that could melt.

Another way to clean toys is in the washing machine. You can use a hosiery bag for small plastic toys, but baby dolls, bags, blankets, etc. can go right into the washer like your other laundry with no problem.

Natural ways to clean

Let’s talk about natural ways to wash the laundry. Homemade laundry soap is very simple to make and works great.

You can use vinegar for fabric softener. It really is the ultimate in natural cleaners. I have used it for years and I don’t have any static in my clothes, even in the winter time. I put it in the fabric softener holder in my washer and it puts it right in. My clothes are soft and there is no vinegar scent.

I like to use a gallon of white vinegar with about 30 drops of lavender essential oil. I keep it next to the laundry soap and give it a shake when it’s time to do a load of clothes. One gallon costs just a couple dollars and lasts for months. I’m saving a ton of money compared to buying downy which contains a ton of harmful chemicals.

Laundry products are especially important because your clothing and bedding are up next to your skin, around your face. You are breathing those ingredients in 24/7. And if you’re using Unstoppables, UNSTOP IT! Those are FULL of really harmful substances.

Switching to natural cleaning products is not as hard as you might think. Just change one thing at a time as you run out of what you’re using. You’ll feel better, your budget will feel better and you’ll know you’re making a healthy choice for your family!

You can even make homemade plant food for your house plants and skip even more chemicals.