Make Your Own Natural All Purpose Cleaner - Affordable, DIY, & Non Toxic
This homemade all-purpose cleaner is a simple, affordable recipe with natural ingredients, making it easy to ditch the not-so-natural store-bought options!
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Short on time? Jump to Recipe
When I left my job to be a homemaker, I got really excited about cleaning. I started using a multi-purpose cleaner from a brand I won't name, but I will say I thought it was a non-toxic option. I was actually using a lot of their "natural cleaners" all over our home. As the months went by, and I was home more often, cleaning more often, I started feeling worse.
Finally, I decided to dig into the ingredients list on the product labels. What I found was shocking to me, but sadly pretty common. Many of the ingredients were endocrine disruptors. These chemicals mimic our bodies' hormones and are "linked with developmental, reproductive, brain, immune, and other problems."1 (Another thing to watch out for are synthetic fragrances!) Not only was I buying a product I thought contained clean ingredients, I was paying extra based on that belief.
So I dumped the toxic chemicals and switched to DIY. This homemade all-purpose cleaner is one of my favorite additions to my homemade, natural cleaning products. It's so easy to make, with only 3 natural ingredients. I love the smell. And I know I'm not filling my home with harmful chemicals that will mess with my, my husband's, or our pet's bodies and minds.
Great for All Types of Cleaning
I love this homemade cleaning recipe because it seriously works on everything! I use it on the kitchen counter, the kitchen sink, bathroom surfaces, bathroom sinks, toilet bowls - I even use it as glass cleaner, and it works great. The only surface I don't regularly use this cleaner is wood.
For wood surfaces I usually just dust with a microfiber cloth. Then every so often I use one of these two options to oil the wood:
olive oil and lemon juice
linseed oil and lemon essential oil
Clean Ingredients Like Water & Vinegar
I like to use a combination of water, white vinegar and essential oil (no harsh chemicals!). So, yes, this is a vinegar cleaner. I like using vinegar because it's pretty darn cost-effective. For the price, I couldn't be happier with this option.
Maybe you don't like that acidic vinegar odor. To be honest, I really don't mind any vinegar scent. Part of that might be the essential oil. Some of my go-to essential oils for this cleaner are lemon and clove. It makes the cleaner smell so good, and I don't even think about the smell of vinegar.
Essential Oils You Can Try:
Lemon
Rosemary
Thyme
Clove
Or any combination of these!
Tips for Making this Homemade Cleaner
This cleaner is so easy to make and store. It helps to have a funnel when pouring the vinegar and the water into the bottle. I use the middle-sized funnel from this 3 pack of stainless steel funnels, which makes for a no-mess process.
What kind of bottle should I keep it in?
Essential oils keep best in amber glass. I love these amber spray bottles and use them to store my homemade cleaners (there's also a 2 bottle option if that works better!). This homemade alternative is also great if you are going for a “zero waste” lifestyle since you’re reusing the spray bottle.
How much does homemade cleaner cost?
If you've read my Homemade Hair Conditioning post, you know I'm all about cost-effective solutions, and I love breaking the price down so you can see how to think about this with things you try at home!
Here's the breakdown:
At the time of writing this post, one gallon of distilled white vinegar costs $12.99, which comes out to $0.12 cents per ounce. I use 8 oz of white vinegar in the recipe, so that comes out to $0.96 in vinegar. The other 8 oz of the recipe is water. I also add in 15 drops of essential oil. The retail price of the oil I use is $47.70 for 0.5 oz. Seems pricey at first, but there is 0.0016907 oz per 1 drop of essential oil, which makes for only .02536 oz for the recipe. So that comes up to $2.42 in essential oil.
That brings the total cost for this homemade all purpose cleaner to $3.38 for 16oz (about $0.21/oz). This is on-par or much less than a lot of store-bought natural product options out there, but I have peace of mind not having to worry about what goes into it. Plus, I like that I'm reusing the container and using less energy and resources making this for myself at home.
Natural All Purpose Cleaner Recipe
Ingredients
8oz Distilled White Vinegar
15 Drops Essential Oil (lemon, clove, rosemary, thyme or a combination!)
8oz Water
Instructions
Measure and pour the vinegar into your preferred container. You can use a funnel to make it easier.
Add 15 drops of your preferred essential oil. I like to do this before adding the water to make for easy mixing.
Measure and pour the water into the container. (Or just add water until full). Store in your cabinet where you’d normally keep your cleaning products.
I like to mix before each use to recombine mixture by lightly turning the bottle upside down and up again. Then use as you would in your normal cleaning routine!
Looking for more tips & recipes on living a more natural lifestyle?
Check out other posts here!
References:
“Endocrine Disruptors.” National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/endocrine/index.cfm.
