Home Keeping: Homemade Cleaning Products

For many years now I’ve been making window cleaner, counter sprays, and hand sanitizer.  Several of you asked me on Friday to share my recipes, and I’m happy to share!

For my hand sanitizer I use half witch hazel/half rubbing alcohol and about 20 drops of essential oils. I use lemon most often as it is a scent I love, as well as having antiseptic properties as one of its many uses.  I sometimes combine essential oils in my hand sanitizer and this last batch I did lemon and tea tree oil.  The oils mix well with the witch hazel and the rubbing alcohol helps the mixture to dry quickly.

I use this on cart handles year round, if a store doesn’t offer cart wipes. I like to avoid viruses of all sorts.  I clean my hands well after leaving a store, too.

For window spray I do a 50/50 mix of rubbing alcohol and water, and you can easily add oils to this mixture, too.  We usually use our Norwex cloths on windows now,  but if I didn’t have a Norwex cloth, I’d certainly use my spray. I found the mixture that I made did not leaves streaks.

Counters can easily be sprayed with a mixture of water and Castile soap like Dr. Bronner’s.  Christmas Tree Shops sells a brand that is equal to Dr. Bronner’s but is less expensive. 

 I also use a 60/40 mixture of water to Castile soap for our hand soap pumps in the bathroom.  We have foaming pumps and this mixture cleans and rises well.  It also does not dry your skin! I have several kids who used to get super dry skin on their hands n the winter and they do not anymore.  The only thing I do differently is make our hand soap. Oh, and I usually use scented Castile soap but if you didn’t you could certainly add essential oils to your soaps.

I haverecently purchased Thieves laundry detergent through my daughter, to deal with an odor issue we are having with our laundry.  I used to make our own detergent, but we felt that it wasn't really working on my husbands work clothes.  So I buy a good eco friendly brand, that is good for our septic system as well, but there is still often a smell to some of the laundry that I don't like.  It should come this week and I'll let you know what I think.  It's pricey, but highly concentrated so we'll see.

Here is a Thieves blend that I've used in the diffuser when we've had a lot of sickness.

source

These homemade cleaners are cost effective ways to clean your home, and they are easy to make.  When Kyle was younger he liked to clean the windows (mostly he loved spraying the cleaner on the windows) and I was happy to let him, because I knew he wasn't using anything that would be toxic to his system.  I also liked knowing that I wasn't using anything that would harm me either!

I hope this helps you to start making your own cleaners, and while all the people are panicking over buying hand sanitizers at the store, you can calmly pick up a few basics - rubbing alcohol, witch hazel, and castile soap - and know you will be able to effectively clean you home and kill germs.