All Natural Cleaning Products (DIY)

Instead of cooking food this week, I focused on DIY (do it yourself) all natural cleaning products.  Making your own cleaning products is super easy, cheap, and safe for the environment and your family.  I'd never imagine being so excited about cleaning products, but I can hardly contain my enthusiasm when I talk about my new DIY cleaning recipes.    I'd be doubly excited if I had a professional cleaning my house for me using my DIY cleaning products, but one thing at a time.

Up and until recently, I'd never considered the dangers of dishwasher detergent.  Generally speaking, commercial detergent contains dangerous phosphates and petroleum products both of which are bad if ingested, inhaled and are also bad for the environment.  Luckily, I found a dishwasher recipe that is so easy, cheap, natural, safe, and works like a charm!!

Dishwasher Soap:

1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda

Combine and add 1 tablespoon per load.

Love, love, love this recipe and my dishes are so clean.  I spent $5.00 on the Borax and Washing Soda and I bet I have enough to last me 6 months.   Normally, I would buy the dishwasher liquid detergent for $5 and it would last 2 - 3 weeks.  So happy about this!!

Homemade Dishwasher Detergent

Next up, I found a glass cleaner recipe from my friend Stacey McKinney that leaves my mirrors and windows squeaky, shiny clean!  And yes you guessed it, Windex or commercial window cleaner contains carcinogens that cause cancer.  In case you are curious, here's the full report:  Dangers of Commercial Window Cleaner

Here's Stacey's recipe:

‎1/2 c. Ammonia,
2 Cups rubbing alcohol
1 T. dish soap, add water to make a one gallon solution

Homemade Window Cleaner

And finally, I'm now making my own all-purpose cleaner and it works great.  My bathroom is so sparkly clean and I feel comfortable spraying it on my kitchen counters because it's all natural.  Not to mention the fact that the peppermint gets me all excited.


All Purpose Cleaner
2 tsp. borax
1/2 cup distilled vinegar
Add to 1/2 gallon of water

Mix one half a cup of distilled vinegar and two tsp. of borax powder in a half of a gallon of water.  This can clean bathroom surfaces, mirrors countertops and chrome fixtures.

Homemade All Purpose Cleaner

I also used Borax to clean the showers / bathtubs this week, and they are also cleaner than they've been in awhile.  I sprinkled Borax directly on a wet sponge, and it took the hard water stains and soap scum stains right off.

And finally, if you need to clean your coffee pot, I would ask you not to put a cleaner in your coffee pot, but lemon juice diluted with water - works like a dream.

My "living in the moment" in 2012 has been such a refreshing change for me.  But, today I locked 2 sets of keys in our van AND tried to drop Greta off at a birthday party ONE DAY early.  The good news is that I was able to have a good laugh about it all. 

The rest of the afternoon we've spent working on Valentine's and our Valentine baking projects.  Here's a sneak peak of what's going on:

Valentine's Treats - in the works / Grandma's Cuisinart

My Grandma's Cuisinart is the bomb.  And, I think she'd be happy to know that I'm working on eliminating all of my commercial cleaners by the end of March.  Heck, I'm almost there.

Happy Valentine's Day!