Vinegar is Not Just for Pickles

Parent Bloggers Network and How I Clean Now want to know your tips and tricks on keeping your house clean.

In our house when a cleaning day comes around, we turn on some ABBA and start at one end and work or way to the other end. Or sometimes we split up the house into rooms and each tackle a section. Or sometimes one person does the picking up, one person does all the dusting, and another does all the vacuuming. Okay, I guess we don't have a set way we clean. But one thing some good music keeps the pace of cleaning going.

One trick I've learned recently is how to make my own all purpose cleaner. It saves money and uses all natural products like vinegar which isn't just for pickles (you should look up all the uses for vinegar. It's amazing what the stuff can do.) I'll walk you through the steps I use to make my cleaner.

Gather your ingredients:

• empty spray bottle
• white vinegar
• water
• tea tree oil (or other essential oil of choice. This is an optional ingredient)

Mix together: a 1:1 ratio of water and white vinegar into the empty spray bottle. I used 1 cup water and 1 cup white vinegar.





*Optional* Place 10-15 drops of essential oil into your cleaner. You could probably use less. I used tea tree oil because that's what I have on hand. Tea tree oil is a natural antibacterial, antiviral, and anti fungal oil and I happen to like the smell of it.



Make sure to label your new cleaner and start cleaning.



There was some paint on the door that had been put there by Pony and hadn't been cleaned up through the winter. It's probably been there since last fall. We don't use that door much so didn't remember that it was there until we are starting to open the door to let the nicer weather in. Any way it's been there for a while.







The paint came right off! And the door is much cleaner. No more little finger prints, face prints or paint.

I use this cleaner all over the house. Some people don't like the smell of the vinegar but I don't mind it. I like knowing that if Pony wanted to see how the windows tasted and went up and licked them, she'd not get a tongue full of nasty chemicals.

Now go and clean your house. And if you want, you can come clean mine as well.

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This post was written for a Parent Bloggers Network and How I Clean Now Blog Blast