There are a ton of green cleaners on the market, but my favorite cleaners are the ones I make at home.
One thing you know for sure, when you make it – you know every ingredient.
You will also save a lot of money, the ingredients are so inexpensive, no wonder the companies that manufacture cleaning products have so much money to spend on advertising! It costs so little to make a batch – it’s crazy!
I make it in batches that make 4 28oz bottles.
13 1/4 cups of Water (1 hot)
1/4 Cup of Dr. Bronner’s Castile Liquid Soap– I like Citrus for the All Purpose Cleaner
1/4 Cup of Borax
1/4 Cup of Vinegar
Borax Free – The Vinegar & Baking Soda reaction is fun for kids!
NOTE – Cleaning with the following recipe requires rinsing. I’m working on a reformulation and will leave this posted with this caveat until I have a borax free option that doesn’t require rinsing.
10 1/4 cups of water (5 hot)
1/4 Cup of Dr. Bronner’s Castile Liquid Soap
1 1/2 cups of Baking Soda
3 cups of Vinegar
Mix the hot water with the borax or baking soda until it disolves.
Once dissolved pour into a bucket – make sure that you have a bigger bucket – the next step will give you a little foaming action!
Add the remaining water, vinegar & Castille Soap.
Use a funnel to pour the solution into the four bottles.
I used to use the Method Products, so I have reused the spray bottles & taken the labels off. Using the handy label maker, made my own labels so I know what’s in each bottle and it looks organized.
There are rumblings about the safety of Borax and while it certainly appears to be a better option than the chemicals in commercial cleaners, there are people who would prefer to avoid it.
Click here to read what they say at Chemistry.com.
I have posed the question about Borax to the EWG. I’ll be curious to hear their response.
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Have you seen any warnings about borax? I’m a little concerned about its safety, especially for something you might not rinse off or might use around the kitchen. I use borax to kill ants; I learned about its hazards in this post and discussed it a bit more in my natural dishwasher detergent results post. Do let me know what you think. I don’t see a checkbox to make sure I see your reply, but feel free to email me.Thanks, Katie
I’ve heard some rumblings about borax, but to date, nothing I’ve read has caused me to use a different formula.
I’ll look at the link you sent over. Thank you!
I absolutely love this cleaner recipe ! I add a few drops of aroma oil and poof! a all purpose cleaner that is amazing and makes my house smell good without the high price cost
I think that mixing vinegar with castile soap negates the affect of either ingredient. The castile is a weak base and the vinegar a weak acid, canceling out the chemical properties that make either of them effective; neutralizing the solution. I believe there are several discussion about it Lisa Bronner’s blog http://lisa.drbronner.com/?p=292A diluted acid (vinegar) rinse is great to use after the castile soap, and using one after the other promotes great results.
Very interesting. This is the first I’ve heard of this. I’ll have to do some further research.
There are many sources that purport a combination of Castille Soap and Vinegar.