Last summer I washed my windows with a mixture of dish soap, vinegar and water and was AMAZED at how well it cleaned my windows and made them shine.
Following the “sparkling window” experience, I decided that I would try to find some other cheap and natural cleaning supplies that were better than brand names for our normal cleaning supplies. What I found is there are many homemade or natural products that work awesome at cleaning, but there are also some “tried-n-true” traditional cleaners that I just can’t leave behind.
Cheap Natural Cleaning Supplies That Work Better Than Brand Names
Vinegar
- All Purpose Solution: Mix 1/3 white vinegar with 2/3 water and a couple drops of dish soap in a trigger sprayer for an amazing all-purpose cleaner.
- Window Cleaner: Mix 1/2 vinegar with 1/2 water and a good squeeze of dish soap in a bucket. Wash windows with soft rag and dry with newspaper. Murder on your nails – amazing on your windows.
- Lime-A-Way: Mix 1 teaspoon of vinegar with 2 tablespoons of salt to make a paste that will get rid of lime buildup.
Baking Soda
- Garbage Disposal Cleaner: Pour 1/2 cup baking soda down your garbage disposal followed by 1/2 cup of vinegar. Wait 15 minutes and pour boiling water to clear residue.
- Bathroom Scrub: Mix 1/4 cup baking soda with 1 tablespoon liquid detergent to make a scrub. Rinse with warm water.
- Oven Cleaner: Mix 1/4 cup baking soda with 1 tablespoon of water and 1 tablespoon of dish soap to make a scrub for the inside of your oven. Scrub and allow to dry and then wipe clean with a clean rag and warm water.
- Homemade Drano: 1/2 cup baking soda down clogged drain. Follow with mixture of 1 cup vinegar and 1 cup hot water. Plug drain with old rag and keep plugged for 10 minutes. Rinse with boiling hot water.
Lemon Juice
- Microwave Cleaner: Mix the juice of one lemon with water and heat on high in microwave for five minutes. Let set for five minutes and then wipe clean.
- Deodorizer: Place lemon peel in garbage disposal and run for a minute. Follow with boiling water.
Microfiber Cloths (my favorite, Libman)
- Dusters: Use on high varnish furniture to remove dust without wax or spray buildup.
Tried-n-True Traditionals
- 409: There are just some greasy stains or sharpie marker that can not be eliminated without the help of 409. It’s my go to cleaner for making grease/dirt/gunk a thing of the past.
- Scrubbing Bubbles Shower Cleaners: I hate cleaning the shower. And whatever they put in this stuff makes it so I don’t have clean that hard or that often. I’ll smell any fume for that convenience.
- Lysol or Mr. Clean Pourable: I have young children who can’t seem to aim correctly. I just imagine the chemicals killing all the “stuff” that lands on the tile floor.
- Lysol Spray: I’ve been know to spray family members with this stuff when everyone is sick in the house except me. It makes me feel like a have a line of defense.
- Mr. Clean Magic Erasers: They do a really good job of making a high traffic hallway presentable (without repainting) before a Christmas party.
How about you? Do you have any cleaners that you just can’t live without-no-matter-what? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to know that I’m not the only one.
My most indispensable product is Kids N Pets enzymatic cleaner. Cannot LIVE without this one with dogs and cats in the house. It’s very effective on urine stains and odors. You might try it on the toilet seat and see if you get even better results than before. As far as I can tell, it’s a basically natural product.
Also, I buy the LA Totally Awesome carpet cleaner from Dollar Tree — I get very good results spot cleaning my rugs where food and drinks just seem to end up no matter what. It’s in a red spray bottle. I learned a little trick from a kid years ago — spray a little cleaner on the spot and “scrub” the spot with the actual spray head — then dab up as usual. Super helpful.
🙂 Kellie
Kelly,
I agree, I HATE scrubbing the shower and bath tubs….I keep a magic eraser in each bathroom for this task and when I get the urge it is right there to use WHILE I am in the shower or my kids are in the tub and I kill two birds with one stone and don’t have to use any chemicals this way either.
It’s not cheap or natural, but I think Simple Green is amazing. It can clean up dried paint splatters on woodwork! My son once scribbled on a door with some kind of marker that wouldn’t come off with a magic eraser or any other cleaner that I tried. I finally had the idea to try Simple Green with a magic eraser and it came off easily!
I’ve been using baking soda and vinegar to clean my clothes washer this week. Baking soda in a batch of HOT water and then vinegar in the rinse cycle. IMPORTANT: NO CLOTHES IN THE BATCH
Vinegar is a good as a fabric softener. And it cleans the gunk out of my fabric softener dispenser since I don’t use vinegar every time.
I am def bookmarking this page. Thanks for sharing!
BTW, if you have a big soaking/garden tub you don’t use often, you’ll find that it gets dusty–not dirty. I use the microfiber cloths or a “Swiffer” type item. It works wonderfully.
I found out the hard way that a little Dawn (original blue) dishwashing liquid and hydrogen peroxide mix removes all trace of hot chocolate from a white twill couch!
Great post! Thanks for sharing!
I love Dawn. Seriously, love Dawn. I use it my bathroom as the all purpose cleaner to get rid of hairspray, makeup and other gunky-stuff.
Hi! Thanks for this awesome collection of natural cleaners. I’ve been working on getting rid of all chemicals. I just thought you might want to know there is a generic version of “Mr. Clean erasers”. I bought them on amazon and it’s called melamine foam. It works just as well but much cheaper. Thanks again.
Thanks for the tip, Jessica. I’ve never tried them, but I think I will now.