Kitchen Tips Tuesday! Homeade Cleaner

Thanks to Elaine for today's blog!

A few weeks ago I had an epiphany. Ben wanted to play in the kitchen sink (which is a daily battle) but it needed to be cleaned. I didn't want to use a harsh cleaner and I remembered reading that baking soda was a fantastic cleaner of sinks so I pulled the box out of the freezer (I have a feeling that it's long past it's deodorizing abilities by now but with out limited cupboard space the freezer is where it stays) and gave it a whirl. I sprinkled some in the sink and went at it with the scrubbie.

After a few minutes of scrubbing I rinsed the sink out and stared down in amazement. It was spotless. Absolutely spotless. Nice and shiny too! No nasty smell, no worry of missing a spot while cleaning up and Ben getting it on his hands, nothing. It was a miracle! I proceeded to attack our bathroom with my new found cleaners and you guessed it! Spotless!

Later on I did some online searching for homemade and chemical free cleaners. There is an absolute treasure trove of info out there of safe, non-toxic cleaners you can make on your own. My personal favourites are plain old baking soda and distilled white vinegar. Apparently you can do darn near anything with baking soda from freshening the cat littler box to cleaning your teeth to shining silver. Who knew?

A few days later I was cleaning up after some particularly messy fried potatoes (a few taters decided to attempt an escape from the frying pan but only made it as far as the stove top before they were thwarted) so I grabbed the bottle of vinegar and water I'd mixed up (recipe found on Make Your Own Cleaners), sprayed the stove top and with one wipe of the paper towel the grease was gone. Gone. Completely gone with virtually no effort and the little effort that was required came from squeezing the spray bottle.

I'm trying to figure out who exactly convinced people that harsh cleaners are so much better than the basics everyone used to use (baking soda and vinegar). There's no extra work involved, everything comes just as clean as it does with chemical cleaners AND you don't have to open every window in the house to get rid of that 'cleaner' smell or wear rubber gloves so the chemicals don't eat holes in your hands.

My new found best friends: baking soda and white vinegar. I wonder if I can buy baking soda by the truck load...


Come visit us at www.mothershideaway.com and tell us what you think!
Visit us to share your Kitchen Tips here: http://www.mothershideaway.com/forums1/showthread.php?t=1690


Thank you to Tammy's Recipes for having Kitchen Tips Tuesday!! http://www.tammysrecipes.com/taxonomy/term/53