Don’t get me wrong, I never had anything against homemade cleaners…but for some reason I always just thought I wouldn’t be saving enough to make up for my trouble. Boy was I wrong.
Here are five of my favorite homemade cleaners, their recipes, and printable labels for when you make your own!
WARNING: Feel free to tweak recipes (I know I do!) But don’t ever MIX ammonia and bleach! The fumes can be extremely hazardous to your health!
Note: These are all written for 24oz Bottles, Divide or Double (etc.) as needed
Blessing ‘in a Bottle
12 oz. of White Vinegar
12 oz. of Dawn Dish soap
1 tsp. of Laundry Detergent
also known as “kitchen Magic” This stuff will get through anything, make your sink and shower shine like new, and save you when just about nothing else works. The laundry detergent is optional-I add it simply to cover some of the vinegar smell!
Window Cleaner
1 oz. of White Ammonia
4 oz. of Rubbing Alcohol
1 drop of Laundry Detergent
Fill remaining space with Water
This is streak free, just like we like it. You can add a few drops of blue food coloring if you want it to resemble windex more (since it’s mostly WATER), but there’s truly no need~I’ve actually found I like this more than windex!
Air & Fabric Freshener
1 oz. of Scented Fabric Softener
2 Tbs. Baking Soda
Fill remaining space with Water
This is a ‘fake febreze’ recipe that I love! It has the fabric softener for scent (which you can buy in so many more cents than fabreze!) and the baking soda for odor elimination. The coloring will come from whatever hue your softener contains. Again, most of this is JUST WATER, amazing how much we’re spending for a few ounces of cleaner and a bottle full of water, huh?
Bleach Cleaner
2 oz of Bleach
1 tsp. Laundry detergent
Fill the remaining space with Water
Because everyone needs a bleach cleaner!
The Cure-All
5 oz. of Rubbing Alcohol
3 oz. of White Vinegar
1 tsp. of Laundry Detergent
1 tsp. of White Ammonia
2 drops of Essential Oil
Fill the remaining space with Water
This is kind of my “Multi-purpose, Multi-surface” Cleaner. I’ve added Essential oils to the recipe which make it smell nice and threw in a few drops of food coloring to separate it from the two other clear cleaners. I go through this probably the most out of any of them (as most of us do with our multi-purpose cleaners). Again, again, again-I’m so amazed with how much of this is water!!
Use Avery shipping labels to stick directly onto spray bottle: Template 5163
Everyone Please Read!! Update January 2013:
Alrighty everyone, listen up! I’ve gotten literally over 100 emails, comments, and messages about where I purchased these bottles so I’m going to put it in one place here, lol!
The process of finding cute bottles was not easy, but the way I ended up doing it could not be any more convenient! I looked online for spray bottles around 25-30oz and there’s lots of them, but you have to buy them in bulk, if you chose to pay a ‘small order’ fee, it often ends up at almost $7 a bottle a the least! I wasn’t willing to sacrifice the sleek bottle look (because I hate the retail industrial cleaning bottles you can buy at the store) so what I ended up doing was simply going to target and getting 6 method cleaners when they were on price cut (which totaled less than 10 dollars). I then used a few empty milk jugs to store the cleaner from five of them and have since used this jug to refill the one cleaner over the last year. I removed the labels from the remaining empty bottles and used them for my home made cleaners.
Short answer: Go to the store and find a bottle you like, buy six of them, empty five, and use those 🙂 Some of you want these bottles specifically so I’d advise going to target, and pick up any of their 28 oz ‘method’ cleaners.
Happy cleaning!