The 4 Ingredients You Need to Clean Your Home

When I started trying to lead a more conscious life, one of the first positive changes I made at home was making my cleaning products more sustainable. At first, I replaced the regular cleaning products you find at supermarkets with vegan and more natural alternatives. The packaging was still better than the ones I used to buy, which are ridiculously bulky and use very thick and unnecessary plastic. However, I decided to find even better replacements, which is what I’m going to share with you in this post: my favorite eco-friendly cleaning products made at home. I’m all for making small changes and taking baby steps. Once you’re comfortable with a new habit, you can move forward with another one. The latest change I made was swapping a refillable natural detergent for a soap bar to clean the dishes.

My partner and I stopped buying cleaning products altogether a few years ago. Not only do they come in plastic packaging, but most of them are also loaded with harmful ingredients. Instead, we use few vegan ingredients that can be bought in bulk and can leave your house shining when used together or individually. The best thing about them is that they are multipurpose and can therefore be used in different surfaces and situations. This eco-friendly way of cleaning your house will help you reduce plastic and live more sustainably!

4 SIMPLE VEGAN INGREDIENTS THAT CAN REPLACE YOUR REGULAR CLEANING PRODUCTS

BAKING SODA

Baking soda isn’t only useful for cooking, it’s also my favorite ingredient for cleaning anything. It’s great for this task because it dissolves dirt and grease, and it also absorbs odors. You can use it to clean your dishwasher, the bathroom, to remove dark spots on your shoes, to clean sponges, to clean yellow stains on your clothes, and you can put it on the laundry machine, among many other uses.

Because of its ability to absorb odors, you can sprinkle it into your trash can so that its smell doesn’t extend to your house. Another thing I do is use it in my shoes to absorb bad smell. I grab a piece of old clothes that are too old or worn off to donate, and I put baking soda, corn starch, and a few drops of essential oils on it, tie it, and put it inside my sneakers.

Baking soda combined with white vinegar is a powerful duo! There’s no stopping this magical mix. Not only will you be in the presence of a fabulous chemical reaction that emulates a volcano explosion, but you will have paired two very practical ingredients that will help you remove stains from tubs, toilets, counters, and sinks.

WHITE VINEGAR

As I mentioned before, vinegar is another ingredient that works wonders when used for cleaning. Baking soda is its partner in crime, but it can also be used alone. You can put it in the laundry machine to use as softener, for example. I use it to clean the stove top, the fridge, plastics, clothes, and for other situations. However, it shouldn’t be used on wood, marble, granite, for ironing clothes, or for cleaning knives.

To clean floors, I fill a bucket with water and vinegar (more water than vinegar), grab a rag, and start scrubbing. To freshen up the carpet I have in my bedroom, I put vinegar, baking soda and water in a bottle, and spray it on the carpet. I let it rest for half an hour, and then use the vacuum cleaner. Another thing that baking soda and white vinegar is useful for, is clearing clogged pipes. You just drop half a cup of baking soda down the drain, and then pour 1 cup of vinegar, close the drain, let it sit for a few minutes, and finally rinse with hot water. I also use them together to remove yellow stains in clothes under the armpits.

LEMON

Lemon complements baking soda and white vinegar perfectly, and what’s more natural than fruit? You can add it to your cleaning mix with vinegar and baking soda, as it’s naturally antiseptic. The most popular way of using it is to clean your microwave. For this, you should place lemon juice in a bowl with water, heat it for around 3 minutes, let it sit for a while, and then use a rag to remove dirt from inside the microwave.

Just like baking soda, lemon can also be used to remove odors. Leave a lemon in a bowl cut in half inside your fridge to absorb bad smells. You can also use lemon to wipe down counters.

 

TEA TREE OIL

Tea tree oil made it to this list because it has antibacterial and antifungal properties, which is why you can use it in your multipurpose cleaning mix: water, white vinegar, baking soda, and a few drops of tea tree oil (or lemon).

You can use this concoction to clean the bathroom and help fight bacteria, or to scrub your kitchen sink (combined with baking soda). Nonetheless, you should be careful when using it. For instance, tea tree oil is poisonous for cats (and probably for any pet), so I only use it dissolved in water and in specific places I know my cat doesn’t touch (I also wash everything thoroughly with water after I finish cleaning). You shouldn’t swallow it either or let it touch your skin directly, something you should be careful about with all essential oils, unless you mix it in a carrier oil.

These are my four magical ingredients to leave my house clean and shiny. I also use water to dissolve them. Before, when I bought refillable dish soap, I added it to the mix to clean the bathtub or the carpet. You can do it too and buy it in bulk or buy refillable dish soap. The most important thing is that we start analyzing areas of improvement in our lives to make them more sustainable. Cleaning products were probably the main reason why I had so much plastic at home, and now that I just buy these four things, I have succeeded in drastically reducing my plastic consumption. Remember, it’s always better to reduce than to recycle, as recycling demands a lot of resources and energy, and not everything we throw on the recycling bin meets this fate (only a small percentage of what we separate gets recycled).

What are your cleaning tips and what products do you use to keep your house like new? Let me know in the comments below!

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Hi, I’m Melina,

I’m the creator of Sustainable Rookie, and my goal is to share what I learn throughout my sustainability journey, so that I can help other people live a more conscious life.

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