Making Your Own Household Cleaners

Everyone wants to avoid unnecessary chemicals, but, frankly, organics and all-naturals are just too expensive. But wait! There is an alternative! (I'm imagining this in Billy Mays' voice.) You can Make Your Own!

First of all, recipes abound. There are dozens of websites and books with recipes and formulas for cleaners, each with a slight variation of the same cleaner. Which one to chose? Do I use the Lemon Fresh counter cleaner with witch hazel or the Mint Scented one that has tea tree oil? A fair amount comes down to smell preference, I suppose. But the problem I had when confronted with all the options, was how to pick one. Nobody that I knew was using homemade cleaners, so I couldn't get any personal recommendations. So, I tried a few. I tweaked recipes. I added different scents, used more of this and less of that.

Most importantly, though, I found the base ingredients that are doing the bulk of the labor. Turns out, vinegar and baking soda are... well, they're amazing! Not just for cooking anymore, these two heavy-lifters can get nearly  anything clean (Billy Mays again)! Burnt-on soup spills on my porcelain stove-top--vinegar! Crayon on my fridge door--baking soda! Both of these guys have books on them: baking soda and vinegar. For history nerds like me, the Baking Soda introduction on the origin of Arm and Hammer was fascinating. : ) But, both books include hundreds (!) of uses for the two ingredients. Very fun!

So, vinegar and baking soda work as the base ingredients. Add to them inexpensive secondary ingredients like witch hazel, rubbing alcohol, and water and you can make counter/floor cleaner, window cleaner, air fresheners, and toilet scrub. I found witch hazel and rubbing alcohol in with the first aid stuff, each for around $2. The most expensive part of making your own cleaners is making them smell, erm, not like vinegar. For that, you can use essential oils, bought from health food stores for around $10. My favorite is lavender. It is more costly than other smells, though, so I use it for air fresheners and fabric fresheners. I highly recommend tea tree oil and citronella for a minty fresh scent.

Vinegar is acidic, so it works best for things that need to be dissolved, like burnt on food or calcium deposits on faucets. Baking soda is an excellent scrubber, so use it for things that need a bit of gritty scrubbing-action  to come clean. Knowing that, it's pretty easy to determine what product to use for what mess. Use a vinegar-based cleaner for the linoleum floor and add baking soda if there's dirt in the grooves (of course, baking soda would have to be rinsed off). Use a vinegar-based cleaner for the stove-top and add baking soda for extra scrubbing power!

The book I found to be most helpful was "The Naturally Clean Home" by Karyn Siegel-Maier. Good basic recipes, and tons of tips.

Speaking of, here are some of my favorite (which means, tested by me personally!) recipes. To make them, gather up your ingredients, a funnel, and some spray bottles. I got garden spray bottles for a buck or two apiece. I highly recommend writing out the recipe and taping it to the bottle so that you don't have to look it up each time you want to make more. I usually double or triple the recipes (depending on the size of my container).

Window Cleaner
1/2 C water
1/2 C white vinegar
1/4 C isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol)
Mix and spritz! It is better to spray any window cleaner onto the rag you are using and then wipe the window.

All-Purpose Cleaner for Counters, Tub, Tile, and Floors
1/2 C water
1/2 C white vinegar
1/4 C witch hazel
10 drops of essential oil of your choice (I combine the antiseptic tea tree oil and lavender oil)
Mix 'em into your bottle, give it a shake to mix up the oils, and spray away!

See? Easy-peasy.  : )

Air Freshener
1/2 C water
5-10 drops essential oil of choice (you can put in more drops to make a stronger smell)
Shake before each use to mix the oils in. This can make the floor slippery if you spray it too close to the ground. I prefer to spray it onto a nearby fabric, such as the shower curtain or window curtains.

Carpet freshener (not a cleaner; just for giving the room a nice smell)
Combine in a bowl 1/2 C baking soda and 10 drops essential oil of choice. Use a fork or a whisk. Mix the oil into the baking soda really well, so that there aren't any big clumps. Sprinkle it over the carpet, wait about ten or fifteen minutes, then suck it up with the vacuum. I found that the smell sticks to the inside of my cyclonic vacuum and it releases the scent into the air the next time I vacuum, even if I don't put down more freshener.

Toilets are tricky. I have really mineral-laden water, so my toilet bowl needs extra help. I spray the All-Purpose  Cleaner in the bowl and then sprinkle baking soda on it. It fizzes, of course; after it's done fizzing, I scrub the bowl. I'm not entirely satisfied with this method, so I'm still looking for a better one. The same thing works quite well for soap deposits in the tub or shower, by the way.

Laundry Freshener
You can add vinegar to the final rinse on your washing cycle to help with static cling, I've heard. I don't have a problem with clingy-ness (on fabrics, anyway), so I've never tried this. But, I have read it in a few places. I have tried scenting fabrics in the dryer! Take an old t-shirt and cut it into little pieces, say 3" squares. When the dryer is almost done (five or ten minutes left), put 5 or so drops of your favorite essential oil onto the wee bit of fabric and toss it in. If it's a big load, you might want to use more oil. This is awesome when I do my sheets! It's so nice to climb into my bed and have it all lavender-y! I store the extra fabric pieces in an old tissue box. They can be washed with your laundry, dried, and reused!

There are sooo many ways to clean using vinegar and baking soda that I could go on, ad nauseam. I will post some more brilliantly simple ways to clean and freshen the home next time.

Thanks for reading and happy cleaning!

The Story Behind "Age of Asparagus"

When my daughter was about eight months old, we gave her some well-done asparagus spears to chomp. She loved (and still loves) her fruits and veggies--good girl! She was rather enthusiastic about the asparagus and nommed away until only the crunchy bits were left. As she ate with glee, I sang to her: "This is the dawning of the Age of Asparagus, the Age of Asparagus!" And so, my new blog shall be christened "Age of Asparagus" in honor of my little one, and with obvious reference to the subject of the blog: self-sufficiency, sustainable living, do-it-yourself homesteading, growing things and making your land (whatever there is of it) work for you.
I have been rifling through books, magazines, and websites for information about homesteading and self-sufficiency. The latter is the idea of doing as much for yourself as you can: growing and storing your own foods; making your own household cleaners; conserving energy and finding new sources where you can; and generally becoming less reliant on others for your daily needs. I don't have any intention of going "off-grid" or recommending it. That is too much for me! My goal is to do as much for myself as I can, within reason. For example, some people prefer to gather and store their own electricity. I don't have the room here, nor do I have an interest, given the expense. But, the topic may come up! The idea of "off-grid" living has its appeal and there is much to be learned from those who are completely 100% Doing It Themselves, and God bless them! But, it's not for me. So, in this blog, I will review books and such, discuss relevant topics to the do-it-yourself lifestyle, and wax poetic about my own attempts at growing and storing food and making things for myself.
This goal of being self-sufficient has many motives: saving money is big on the list. There are so many ways to save money by doing things the Old-Fashioned way, or doing/growing/making it yourself. Sure, you aren't going to save We're Going to Europe kinds of dough, but, hey, "a penny saved" and all that. Being environmentally friendly is also on the list. Every little bit of effort counts toward preserving the environment.
Homesteading, which I mentioned earlier, is a way of life that has fallen out of practice. It used to be that each family had a farm and they raised their own chickens, a dairy cow, fruits, veggies, herbs... They would preserve and store as much as possible to get them through winter. Now, we have grocery stores that carry apples all year 'round and even bring in exotic fruits (the aptly-named Ugli fruit!). We've gotten used to having our ease, which is fine, but I want something else. A return to the connection we used to have with our food. We wouldn't be paranoid about pesticides if we were growing our own veggies and weren't using any chemicals to do so. Would we even know what High Fructose Corn Syrup was if we were all making our own jelly, tomato sauce and ice cream?
I could go on, but this was meant to be an introduction of sorts. I'll save the soap-boxing for another post, eh?
I intend to share here information that I found inspiring and/or helpful about growing and preserving food, making household cleaners (laundry soap, All-Purpose cleaner, window cleaner, toilet scrubs, air fresheners), and cutting back on expenses wherever I can.
P.S. I wont be doing any soap-boxing, just providing information. Promise.     : )