Tag Archives: cleaning

Vinegar, what is it good for, just about everything!

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I do not like to clean. I do not like to use harmful or smelly chemicals in my home. I do not like to spend a lot of money on cleaning supplies. I do love a clean home though. After my son was born, these positions grew deeper. I needed to find non-toxic, easy and inexpensive ways to clean my home. I always used vinegar to clean glass but I started to explore it further. It was already in my kitchen, it’s used on food – thus non-toxic, and it was inexpensive. I started to use it in the bathroom, kitchen and then found it was an excellent cleanser for just about everything. Now I always have a spray bottle filled with a mixture of 1:1 white vinegar and water handy. I use it as some would use “Fantastic” or “409.”

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

Here’s what I use the 1:1 white vinegar and water solution in a spray bottle for:

  • Cutting the grease, soap scum, hard water deposits and dirt all over the house
    • Cleaning windows
    • Countertops and stovetops
    • Disinfecting cutting boards
    • All purpose floor cleaner
    • Bathrooms – for disinfecting and removing/killing mold and mildew
  • Removing hard water mineral build-up
    • Remove your showerhead and soak it in 1:1 solution of vinegar and water over night – like a miracle when you reattach the showerhead, water will flow through all the holes once again
    • Soak a cloth in 1:1 solution and lay it on objects with mineral buildup, leave over night, it should scrub off easily the next day – if not, leave it on for another day and try again. Patience is always important if you don’t like to scrub.
    • Clean out your electric drip coffee maker – run a 1:1 solution through a cycle and then run straight water through again
  • Removing mold from leather – spray on, wipe off and then let it sit out in the sun. You may want to rub some olive oil into the leather afterward to condition the leather, so it won’t dry out.
  • Carpet cleaner and deodorizing pet smells. Once a dog pees on the carpet they tend to go back to the same place, vinegar will destroy the scent so they won’t return to the scene of the crime.
  • Removing wallpaper, borders and labels that stick on. Spray anything you want the glue to release, let stand for at least 10 minutes or more then pull off. If some residue remains, spray again and if you’re patient, the glue will release with time and with very little effort. The vinegar breaks down the bond in the glue.

Uses for straight White Vinegar:

  • Use instead of a rinse aid for your dishwasher
  • Laundry – add a cup of vinegar during the rinse cycle and it will soften your clothes and prevent clinging.
  • WEED KILLER! I was very excited to learn yet another use for our old friend at the Northeast Organic Farmers Association in Saratoga Springs few years ago.

I loved the idea as I enjoy foraging our lawn for herbs to put into our salad, and using toxic chemicals is not an option to rid our lawn of uninvited plants. I typically enjoy watching and eating the weeds coming into our lawn but I simply cannot find affection for Bull Thistle. It hurts to walk on! I have tried digging the young seedlings up but their roots grow too deep, so I end up leaving craters everywhere. Now I pour a ½ cup of white vinegar into the base of the rosette, to saturate the root…and within one day, it is obvious that it has killed the plant. White vinegar does it again and now the bull thistle is eradicated without adding poison to our lawn.

 

Bye Bye Thistle!

What do you use white vinegar for? Please share and I will continue to share.

 

 

 

Let white vinegar and baking soda’s explosive relationship do the work for you.

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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.
Unclogging drains
  • 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.