Homemade Household Cleaners

Over the past few months I have been givng much thought to making my own household cleaners. From Laundry Detergent to glass cleaner. I've done some research online. My inital reason for researching homemade cleaners was to save money. I knew that the staple ingrediants in most cleaners are actually cheap items to buy. (ex. baking soda & vineger). I'm all about saving money. I've been considering making our own laundry detergent for some time now. Actually probably a year ago I saw an episode of 18 Kids & Counting where they showed how they make their own laundry detergent. They talked about how much money that saves their family since they have SO much laundry. I feel like we go thru TONS of laundry soap and I hate to spend that much money on it. So the thought of making my own was something I thought about a lot. I mentioned it to my husband. He said, "sure go ahead if you want". But I still haven't done it yet. Then the other day I read this article on yahoo finance about making your own detergent. Then later on that same day my husband said, "You need to start making laundry detergent". He read the same article I had read. So we have decided to do it. I haven't done it yet. But we will be making it soon since we are almost done with our current jug of detergent. I'm so excited to start making it & to know that we are saving our family money! A few weeks ago I ran out of my window/glass cleaner. I found a recipe for glass cleaner and since I had all the ingredients in the house, I made some. The recipe I used was:

1 cup rubbing alcohol
1 cup water
2 tablespoons vinegar

I do have to say I was VERY pleased with it. It worked just as good as any glass cleaner I have used before. I will continue to make it.

Another reason I have decided to make my own cleaners is because of the harsh chemicals used in most of them. I came to the realization of this the other day. I have been using Swiffer Dust & Shine when I dusted. (it's similar to using Pledge). I actually had 4 bottles of this product thanks to some coupons I had that made them practically free. Every time I used them I noticed my eyes would feel all itchy, my throat would itch, my nose would itch. I felt like I had really bad allergies or something. The funny thing was when I sprayed it, it didn't spray all thru the air or anything so it's not like I was breathing it in. But just the smell of it caused this. Part of me thought it was my imagination. Then the other day it happened. I could hardly breathe for quite a few hours after I used it. The scent just stuck in the rooms. SO i went back thru and used a mild soap and water and re-cleaned everything I had used that on. Once the smell was gone, my symptoms were gone. Now I'm not saying that everyone will get that reaction from this product. I'm just saying it affected me that way so obviously there are harsh chemicals in it that is causing me to feel that way. So I threw it out. I'm planning on just using 1 cup olive oil mixed with 1 cup lemon juice as a furniture polish when I'm dusting.
So not only will I be saving my family money, I will also be using products that are more natural and not so harsh.
Here is another website that I looked at that gives a lot of good info about what is safe to mix and what's not. I found a lot of good info on that site as well as recipes for the cleaners. Another site that has good recipes is this one right here.
Oh and yesterday I was pretty proud of myself. I found a load of laundry in the dryer that had melted orange and blue crayon all over them! Luckily they were still wet when I noticed. I didn't know what to do. In a panic, I franticly threw the clothes back in wash machine. I threw in a cup of laundry detergent then grabbed the baking soda and poured 2 cups in. Then poured a cup of vinegar in as well. I was so worried about our clothes since that was a load of our best clothes. After about 5 minutes I went and checked the clothes. As I pulled out piece after piece of laundry I found that my solution had worked! There was not a spot of crayon on ANYTHING! WOW! I was so relieved. Now I think the biggest trick to that was that I found them BEFORE the crayon had dried on them. But still I had clean clothes!
I will be sure to update once I make more cleaners and let you all know how they work.