Natural Stone requires extra care because it is a honed surface that and you’ll want to maintain their honed polish. To do this you want to clean with a solution that contain a neutral pH.
Requiring a neutral pH eliminates some of the more common natural cleaning ingredients, lemon at a pH of 2.4, vinegar at 2.8, & baking soda at 9.0.
I often use the PND All Purpose Cleaner on our granite counters and have yet to notice a problem, but it does contain vinegar – so not the best choice. A more delicate variety of granite may suffer over time.
Recipe
6 cups of Water
1/3 cup + 1 tsp of Alcohol denatured or regular
1 Tbs of Castille Soap – I use almond
20 Drops of Essential Oil – I use citrus or almond
If you want a stronger anti fungal or antibacterial add:
1/3 cup + 1 tsp Tea Tree Oil
This recipe will fill two spray bottles ~ I make my cleaners in batches so I don’t have to make them as often.
If you choose to add Tea Tree Oil be sure to add at least 4% as called for in the recipe, any less and you could promote bacterial resistance. Additionally omit the essential oil. Tea tree oil has a strong eucalyptus scent that will overpower any other fragrance.
I make ours without the tea tree, the alcohol kills enough germs for my comfort level.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_tree_oil
http://www.pbase.com/weed30/cleaning_granite
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2004/s1081381.htm
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090821043836AA7ohgN
{ 1 comment… add one }
hi there thank you very much for the tip ..I’m into the chemical free living and it is great to use just gentle natural ingredients to clean the kitchen..thank you very much for sharing