Last week, within a 24-hour period, we had 5 separate spills that caused big messes at our house. One was the shattering of a quart size jar of homemade elderberry syrup, another involved tomato sauce on a wall, and yet another involved mashed sweet potatoes painted on the side of our Berkey filter.
Needless to say, our home is very rarely clean for more than a few minutes at a time and this week was no exception. Thank goodness for natural cleaning products that actually work or I very well may have been drinking wine by early afternoon on those days.
Natural Cleaning Spray
I’ve completely transitioned to making all of my own cleaning products and I love how much cheaper it is and how we are avoiding hundreds of chemicals.
I love this homemade all-purpose cleaning spray, but there is some controversy over the use of Borax, especially around eating surfaces. Personally, I think Borax is still a really safe option, especially compared to the ingredients in most conventional cleaning products, but I wanted to make another natural cleaner that truly was safe enough to drink.
My 18-month old is at the age of wanting to “help” and this is a cleaning spray I feel completely comfortable with her using. I usually spritz this on a microfiber or a huck towel and let her “clean” the cabinets.
All of the ingredients are completely safe and even ingestible (depending on who you ask). I just used filtered water, non-GMO white vinegar and food grade lemon and basil essential oils (both generally considered safe for ingesting when diluted).
One word of caution: when using essential oils, it is important to use a glass bottle whenever possible since some oils will break down the plastic and cause it to leach chemicals into the cleaning spray. I used this glass bottle in the picture above, but I’ve also made my own out of an old vinegar bottle and a spray top.
Where to Get Natural Cleaning Supplies
Here are links to the exact ingredients I used:
- Glass Spray Bottle
- Organic Distilled White Vinegar
- Essential Oils (I used lemon and basil)
Lemon Basil Natural Cleaning Spray Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups of filtered water
- 1 cup of organic distilled white vinegar
- 20+ drops of organic lemon essential oil
- 15+ drops of organic basil essential oil
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in glass spray bottle and use as needed for household cleaning. Works well on windows and stainless steel as well as flat surfaces like tile and counters.
Notes
Customize essential oils to your preference by adding more, less or even omitting completely. The vinegar smell will disappear once the spray dries and only a faint scent of lemon and basil will remain.
What do you use to clean? Do you let your children help?
I also have been wondering about the plastic insert attached to the sprayers in glass bottles. If essential oils leech plastic, how is that safe? Or is it just safER? I’m replacing all my household and personal products with safe organics and am wondering if I might just eliminate spray bottles altogether. Thanks!
It is the safest option I’ve found. I don’t think there is a metal or glass option
Okay, thanks. I just made some this evening for the first time. It works great!
Is the spritzer made of plastic? Aren’t they all? I’m wondering if the glass bottle is worth the trouble if the product will be contaminated anyways?
Thanks!
Another natural cleaner that I recently found and love uses warm water, baking soda, white vinegar and lemon juice/oil. Smells fantastic and cleans well!
We use a similar solution. While I love Essential Oils, we live in Florida and have citrus trees. We dehydrate the peels after we use the fruit/juice, and after dehydrating put the peels in a gigantic glass jar of vinegar to soak for a week. Then, we can dip in and mix with water for cleaning – practically free!
Thank you Mary! I live in Florida too. What citrus do you use, or do you find one works better than others? I’m looking forward to trying this.
I really love using vinegar solutions for cleaning, especially when you marinate a jar full of used citrus peels in vinegar for a couple of weeks, to give that vinegar a bit of a lemony scent. My husband absolutely hates the scent of vinegar. It’s such a great way to clean the floor, though.
However, I found out that you shouldn’t use vinegar (or citrus juices) on marble or stone, because it will pit it after a while.
I have been using the citrus peel infused vinegar solution for my cleaning. I mix with equal parts water and add a few drops of basil, clary sage and rosemary essential oils to it. I use it on my granite countertops. I have heard about it causing pitting and was not safe for natural stone and marble but I also heard it was safe. How are we to know whether it does or not cause problems since there are mixed reviews about that ? I hope not….cause I love it and it smells wonderful !
Hi, Becky,
I found this one for cleaning granite, so I have a separate spray bottle for this one. 1/4 c rubbing alcohol or vodka, 3 drops dishwashing liquid, 2 cups water, 5-6 drops essential oils. I started using this one for my granite, and it works great. You could add some good scents into this mixture, too. You could even add the lemon eo for the lemon smell. Apparently, the eo doesn’t have the citric acid that supposedly causes the etching in that real lemons do.
Lynda, thank you for this recipe. If you don’t add citrus peel does the vinegar itself also cause pitting ?
From everything I’ve read, they say never to use vinegar or citrus on marble or granite, because they both cause etching/pitting. Too acidic I guess. I never knew this, myself, until I started reading what others had to say everywhere I looked.
Hope that helps.
it works really well on the floors but I would not use on stone counters trust me it’s such a good cleaner it strips the gloss off,
Hi Katie,
I’m wondering if this is gets its yellow color from the essential oils? I’m assuming it is healthy & natural 🙂 Looks great!
Thanks,
Rachel
Thank you Katie! I love your page. I was just wondering if we could use different essential oils instead of lemon and basil. I have lavender and tea tree oil at hand and wanted to know if the cleaner would be still effective if I used those. Thanks much!
Why is it yellow? Does lemon essential oil turn it this color or is that just altered for your photo?
I’d like to comment on Borax. Borax is extremely safe and it is mind naturally and has good levels of boron. On a toxicity chart borax is LESS toxic than table salt. Yes, you can consume borax. I’ve done so for quite some time. It helps de-flouridate the body and helps with arthritis. There’s actually a conspiracy behind it(surprise surprise, right). Here’s the link:
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/boraxconspiracy03jul12.shtml
Is this an effective degreaser? For instance, for cleaning the stovetop after bacon grease has splattered everywhere 🙂 Right now I clean my stove with a water/vinegar/tea tree oil mix….