Cleaning House

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I’ve been using an old Windex bottle filled with vinegar to clean my house for years now. It’s cheap, effective, and safe. Because I recently dove headfirst into the world of essential oils, I’ve been getting more creative about my cleaning concoctions. I figured I’d take a minute to show you how we do things here on the farm.

Homemade Wipes

I wanted to have simple cleaners handy in the two dirtiest rooms in our house, the bathroom and the kitchen. Note: I’ve found I’m keeping the surfaces in these rooms cleaner because it’s just so dang easy to do so with pre-made wipes. Here are the two different approaches I’ve tried in these rooms:

  1. In the bathroom cabinet, I keep a glass jar filled with cut up cloth scraps and vinegar (left-most photo below). When our clothes are too gross to donate, I chop them up and shove them into this jar, which I keep filled with vinegar and a few drops of essential oil. Because it’s not exactly picturesque and our bathroom is tiny, I keep this jar tucked out of sight.

    • Pros: This is a money saver, it’s a great way to reuse old clothes and towels, and it’s simple to throw together.

    • Cons: It’s not cute.

  2. On the kitchen counter, I keep a glass jar of homemade wipes (center photo below). I used this recipe and just threw it in a big glass jar instead of a can.

    • Pros: It’s cute, it’s cheaper and more eco-friendly than buying wipes at the store (no plastic canister to throw away).

    • Cons: It’s not as cheap or as environmentally friendly as option #1. The weight of the glass lid usually makes it easy to pull off the individual wipes, but it sometimes doesn’t quite work with one hand. The paper towels aren’t as damp as I’d like them to be, and the part of the paper towel that sticks out from under the lid dries up completely. I realize these are minor cons, but I want to be thorough.

Lemon Spray

I made this really simple solution in a glass spray bottle, which I also keep on the kitchen counter. I know it seems redundant, but sometimes you want to really saturate something before you wipe it up, right? Also, I didn’t want to wipe down the wooden kitchen table with anything containing alcohol. I’m calling it “Lemon Tell Ya Somethin’.” Here it is:

10 drops lemon essential oil
1 cup distilled water
1 cup white vinegar

Bug Spray

We go through a lot of bug spray. A lot. We’re always outside, and our kids are super annoying when they’re itchy. (Aaron asked me to point out that we haven’t dealt with very many mosquitoes since he learned about BTI. More on that in another post.) DEET-free store-bought bug spray is expensive as all get-out, so I researched online and came up with this recipe, which I’m naming “Bugz-B-Gone”:

20 drops lemon essential oil**
20 drops eucalyptus essential oil**
20 drops lavender essential oil
10 drops rosemary essential oil
10 drops cedar essential oil
10 drops peppermint essential oil
10 drops lemongrass essential oil
1 tbsp isopropyl alcohol
1/2 cup witch hazel
1/2 cup distilled water

**After making this blend, I learned that lemon eucalyptus essential oil isn’t just a blend of lemon essential oil and eucalyptus essential oil. Oops. I’m owning it. Anyway, we’re going to take this spray for a test drive and see what happens. #failingbetter