The first time I experienced one of the amazing qualities of vinegar was in elementary school. I was building a volcano for a school project.  My mom helped me build a volcano out of paper mache, we painted it, and then we had to create an eruption. That’s where our friends vinegar and baking soda come in – we colored the vinegar with red food coloring and then put about a cup of baking soda inside the volcano, and the magic happened when we poured the vinegar over it. You could hear the bubbling within the volcano and then it started to slowly come up inside the cone and spill over the sides. It was a good thing we placed the volcano in a baking dish as the “lava” oozed all over the place.

What actually happens when the vinegar and baking soda mixed? A very simplistic answer is that the hydrogen ions from the vinegar and the bicarbonate ions from the baking soda combined, they create carbon dioxide gas and water. So, the bubbling and oozing that we saw was really the CO2 gas being released, a very exciting chemical event nonetheless.

As my desire to reduce chemicals in my life and decrease the amount I spent on cleaning supplies grew, my fascination with vinegar and baking soda also grew.  Even today, I am learning new ways to use them– over 35 years since my love affair began.

Did you know that as long as you have white vinegar and baking soda you can tackle almost all of your cleaning challenges?

Vinegar is an acid that neutralizes alkaline substances such as scales from hard water. It is also a disinfectant and antifungal.

Baking Soda is slightly alkaline, so it neutralizes acid-based odors in water and it absorbs odors in air. It is also a gentle nonabrasive cleaner.

The two of them together make an explosive relationship.

One of my favorite ways to clean is to not really scrub, so I let the vinegar and baking soda do all the hard work – but patience it a must – it does not always work instantly.

All you need is a spray bottle of 1:1 white vinegar and water and baking soda.

Greasy grimy ovens and stovetops

• Sprinkle some baking soda on those encrusted baked-on spots in the oven and spray 1:1 vinegar solution on the baking soda. Give it 20 minutes to do its job and scrub it with a mild abrasive pad to loosen stubborn spills, spray some more vinegar solution , so you have created a paste and let it sit over night. Scrub (I don’t mean elbow grease scrubbing, just rub it in) the next day, if it still hasn’t all come up, add more baking soda and spray vinegar solution. Let it sit over night again. I’m sure you are going to think, wow, this is not working or taking too long – patience. Hopefully, your oven is not as dirty as mine, but when I do get around to it, I don’t like to scrub, so I let the solution do the job. And it has never failed me.
  

  VERY dirty stove burner covers

  

  Letting vinegar and baking soda work their magic

Yippee! Clean burner covers!

Bathroom soap scum

•  Do the same as above but it should come up after the first application and waiting 20 minutes. It helps whiten up orange iron stains as well.

• Put a cup of baking soda down the drain, add a cup of vinegar, give it 5 minutes and then pour boiling water down the drain. This process unclogs and deodorizes.  The combination of baking soda and vinegar breaks down fatty acids into soap and glycerin, allowing the clog to wash down the drain.

Please share what you have used white vinegar and baking soda for and I will continue to share with you.