Spring Cleaning with safer cleaners

This past week I got around to some cleaning projects. I found a great list of natural, safer cleaners that you can make from simple ingredients you probably have at home on a website by Mothers for Clean Air. The only thing I had to buy was Borax, which is a naturally occurring mineral. It is sold at my Wal-mart as 20 Mule Team Borax and was very inexpensive. So, I made the recipe for "all purpose cleaner" from this list (mixed warm water with a tsp vinegar and a half tsp of borax) in a bowl and used it to clean marks on the walls and clean the baseboards. Now I can put this mixture in an empty spray bottle to clean countertops, etc.

I then made this wonderful natural version of soft scrub to clean my bathrooms. I have always hated cleaning the bathroom because the chemicals in the store-bought cleaners hurt my head and smelled awful. Or they didn't work well. So, here is a recipe I adapted from my Feingold friend, Patti's recipe. I washed out an old soft scrub squirt bottle really well with warm water and funneled the mixture into the bottle after mixing it up in a bowl first. Also, since it doesn't include a disinfectant in it, you might want to spray vinegar on bathroom surfaces to disinfect them.

 Homemade Soft Scrub for your Bathroom

1 2/3 cups baking soda

1/2 cup liquid soap (I used a Feingold approved peppermint oil soap)

2 tablespoons vinegar

1/2 cup water

Mix soda and soap. Add water, then add vinegar and mix with a wire whisk until well blended. Store in a squirt-top bottle and shake before using. Rinse thoroughly to avoid leaving a residue.

This cleaner smelled SO GOOD because of the peppermint oil in the soap. I enjoyed cleaning with it! And, without using gloves, my hands felt softer after cleaning!