Natural Cleaning Solution: Vinegar, Lemon Juice & Water

I've stopped using commercial cleaning products at home. I'm using a mixture of vinegar, water and lemon juice in a spray bottle.  I am very pleased with the results-it really cleans well and if there is something that needs a bit more "muscle" I sprinkle a little baking soda.  

Is there anything I can add to make it smell better? The lemon gets overpowered by the vinegar.

Tks,

Tabby

BTW, what happened to my avatar?

In my experience, the smell of vinegar overpowers pretty much everything else.  Good thing is once surface dries, it doesn't smell.  

I have been using this on my wood floors lately and am pretty happy:  http://www.popsugar.com/smart-living/Homemade-Wood-Floor-Cleaner-28991618

cmarym said:

In my experience, the smell of vinegar overpowers pretty much everything else.  Good thing is once surface dries, it doesn't smell.  

 This

To clean the microwave I put a cup of vinegar in and turn it on for a minute or two.  I then take it out and wipe down the interior with a damp sponge.  Everything comes off easily and once it dries the microwave no longer smells of anything.

To clean up soap scum in the tub I use a mixture of borax, baking soda, and table salt.  I buy the baking soda and salt at Costco.  The borax I buy at the supermarket.  I've heard that borax is an endocrine disrupter, but I am using it on a hard non-porous surface where it will be rinsed away and not in laundry, so I am not to worried about it.

 I finally got around to looking up the recipe.  It is two parts baking soda, one part borax, one part salt.  Mix and put into a shake container.  For extra dirty areas they say you should first spray down the area with vinegar but I've never found that necessary even when I've neglected the tub to the point of being extra gross.  

I've tried making laundry soap. it is pretty simple and easy to do, but in my experience I found it hard on clothing.  Colors faded much faster, so I stopped doing that.  Also, the recipe I used included borax, which I didn't know about at that time, so depending on your feelings of that you may not even want to try that.

How can I de-stink-ify my kitchen sponges?

Saw this idea today for better smelling kitchen cleanser:

http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-an-all-purpose-kitchen-cleaner-using-citrus-peels-cleaning-lessons-from-the-kitchn-216274

As for stinky sponges, I microwave them  

How much vinegar are you putting in?

I used to use a 1/2 cup of white vinegar in my mop bucket to clean my wood floors. Cleans great with no smell and no waxy build ups from products. O Cedar makes a great floor "mop" that is flat. You can use any solution you want so I add vinegar and water to clean my floors now. I use that now. 

I'm using a mixture of vinegar,  and lemon juice in a spray bottle to kill dandelions.

Tom, clean your sponges in really hot salty water. Squeeze them as dry as you can. Then zap them in your microwave (I've forgotten the exact time etc but you can google that). Some people do this with the sponges in a plastic bag, some don't but clean the microwave afterwards.

If you don't have a microwave, hang the sponges in the sunshine for several hours.

Or turf them:  the odour often indicates the presence of bacteria that are difficult to kill in a domestic situation and that you don't want in your kitchen.

Re the cleaning solution in OP: a drop or two of vanilla may help, or use that for your rinse/polishing cloth.

Remember a few years ago when the chemical scare was huge, and people were terrified because their cleaners contained ascorbic and acetic acids??? That's all these cleaners were.

I run my sponges through the dishwasher in the top rack from time to time. Or sometimes I put them in a dish with a little soapy water and nuke them in the microwave for a couple of minutes (to boil them).

Are people afraid of using a little chlorine bleach now, to kill germs in sponges? I know it works! But is using a solution of water and bleach now deemed harmful to humans and pets? 

happyheart, (nice name) bleach is one of the most toxic things, but I don't mind using it occasionally. Use it carefully.

Happy heart, bleach actually doesn't kill the spores of whatever is causing the stink, it merely kills the colour. If you could do the microscope thing, you'd be pretty horrified at what you'd find.

For kitchen safety, and for bathroom safety, it's best not to rely on bleach as your domestic sanitiser.  The commercial grade bleaches are prohibited for use without PPE (personal protection equipment, against fumes and splash back etc).

That last upgrade for my Food Safety Supervisor qual was super scary, and it's only at community kitchen/ aged care recreation level.

Really, mold doesn't kill the spores?

The mould & fungi grow from spores... 

For kitchen sponge/scrubber, I've been using something like this (natural? sponge inside, loofah outside).  It lasts for months and months and NEVER gets smelly.  That and a dish cloth, and occasionally baking soda for scrubbing, does it all for me.  No more always-getting-stinky sponges.

http://www.amazon.com/Twist-278476-Loofah-Sponge/dp/B007UUKMLU/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1431482673&sr=8-5&keywords=loofah+kitchen+scrubber

I know this thread is about vinegar and lemon, but I can't stress enough the uses for baking soda.  I buy it in bulk at Costco.  For pots with burned on food I throw a handful (1/2 cup???) in and add water just to cover the burned area.  I then heat it to a boil and then turn off the heat and let it sit until the pot is cool.  More often than not I will then be able to get the burned marks off with a simple sponge and no scrubbing.  For stubborn spots some fresh baking soda on the sponge works well.  Unfortunately, this method works so well that I no longer purchase steel wool, so for the rare occasions that I actually need it I don't have it in the house.  I'd say that 99.9 percent of my pots, pans, and baking dishes are easily cleaned with dish soap, regular two sided sponges, a soak in hot water, and baking soda when needed.  I used to swear by Dawn Power Dissolver for stubborn spots, but now I can't even remember the last time I bought it.

wow. great thread! bleach doesn't kill bacteria ??? I need to research this! I'm so out of touch with this stuff.

I keep hearing conflicting statements about bleach. Some tell me it does kill bacteria, others that it only gets rid of the stain. I'm not sure what to believe, but I hate the smell and the way it makes whites turn yellow, so I don't mind giving it up.

I bought some baking soda in a large box for the laundry room yesterday on the strength of this thread!

ETA: a quick Google search showed that bleach does, indeed, kill bacteria.

These are the U.S. guidelines for using bleach, note the date is Jan 2001 and that you need to test both solution strength and temperature for effective contaminant control (as well as testing surfaces to ensure effective removal).

http://web.uri.edu/foodsafety/sanitizing-solutions/

Since then,  more easily applied and more effective sanitisers have been released into the domestic market.

What people often forget is diversity of microbial contamination we're up against; it's no longer the relatively 'clean dirt' of even 30 years ago. So a leaky chicken bag, a sticky juice container, a bit of dirt and dust on your free-range organic eggs and organic fresh veg and who-knows-what on the bunch of flowers and the bundle of snail-mail combining with the gunk at the bottom edge of your handbag (been on the floor of the car, the cafe, etc), babies' stuff, car keys.... Those counters accumulate a lot you can't see. 

A scary exercise is to tear a piece of notepaper in half every 15-20mins. That's roughly the reproductive cycle of stuff like listeria etc. In almost 3 hours you'll have roughly 300 pieces of paper... So if you're counting on a domestic bleach solution to counter your microbial and fungal problem for your cleaning tools, you'll want to be sure that your solution is effective not 'soup'. 

Sorry, folks. 

Can we talk about cleaning rugs and dog pee smell??  Please.

you all might be interested in all these other uses for everyday products:

"Polish your Furniture with Pantyhose"  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/polish-your-furniture-with-pantyhose-joey-green/1112589978?ean=9780786881086

OR "Cleaning Magic"

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1605297453/ref=as_li_tf_til?tag=joeygreenswackyu&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1605297453&adid=0D43SR33PCCHCN4Q26EF

and other books along the same line by Joey Green:

http://joeygreen.com/