See It, Pin It, Do It - DIY Cleaning Products

In the last year or two I have really become more aware of the amount of store bought products that could easily be replicated at home with less cost and often less chemicals. Since then I have found it enjoyable to try out the different suggestions and see what works well and make as many swaps from store bought to homemade as possible. So I thought it would be a good idea to make this See It, Pin It, Do It post about DIY cleaning products. Let me share what I tried.

I already make my own laundry detergent so I didn't have to try that one out. You can see my post HERE if you are interested in giving it a go yourself. I honestly whip this up every couple weeks and the supplies last me quite awhile. For my family, it works great.

This last week I ran out of dryer sheets so it was the perfect opportunity to try out the reusable dryer sheets I had pinned from One Good Thing (click the name for her instructions). I loved the idea of eliminating the waste of dryer sheets and already had the white cloths and liquid fabric softener on hand so decided to give this a whirl. You can also do this with homemade liquid fabric softener (see One Good Thing's link above for those instructions as well) which I plan to try when I run out of the Downy I already have on hand. I hung them up in my laundry room to dry and they were ready by the end of the day. Have been using them ever since and absolutely love them!

The before picture of my dryer sheets

Another DIY cleaning product I have already tried out and been using for some time is a replacement for store bought Swiffer Wet Jet Cleaning Solution. You can see my post on that HERE. However I may have to replace that with the next product I share with you.

I was thrilled when I found a Pin with a homemade citrus cleaning product. I just used the pinner's suggestion so I am going to link you back to that original pin instead of an actual blog. This can be used as an all purpose cleaner (and would be great in your Swiffer Wet Jet!). You are looking at a two week process here so you'll want to save your citrus peels now. As soon as one solution was ready, I started the next one so I would have more when the first bottle ran out. My first batch smelled mostly of vinegar but cleaned really well. I am trying more peels in my second batch to see if that helps create more of a citrus scent. Here's what the process looked like for me:

Supplies - container, 2 cups vinegar and citrus peels

Sealed container with instructions and ready date

2 weeks later...ready to mix with 2 cups water

Mixed, labeled and ready to go!

Next I tried a very simple bath tub cleaner (that was pinned from Food.com of all places!). Click the highlighted words for exact instructions but this is basically equal parts heated vinegar and Dawn dish soap. {For full disclosure, I didn't use Dawn but instead whatever brand of dishwasher soap I had on hand but I still got great results}We have two baths in our house so I sprayed them both down and let them sit while I cleaned the rest of the bathroom. I had my husband do the second tub because he is sometimes a sceptic about the effectiveness of homemade cleaners and we were both equally pleased with the results. Coincidentally, my sister also made this same cleaner within the last few weeks and raved about it as well! I would say it's a keeper.

Labeled bottle with ingredients so I don't have to look it up next time I want to make it

Finally I wanted to share with you the DIY toilet bowl cleaner I have been using for years now. I don't have pictures or a source because it's a simple tip I picked up awhile ago and have done ever since. I pour a cup of vinegar into a medium sized bowl, hold it over my toilet bowl and add 1/4 cup baking soda and mix slightly before dumping it into the toilet (vinegar and baking soda has a really fun reaction so make sure you don't use a bowl that's too small..been there done that!). I let that sit for a minute and then use the toilet brush to wipe down the inside before flushing. With 3 small kids in the house who have all at one time or another gotten into the toilet water and a cat who frequently uses it as his watering hole (I know, gross!), I like to keep chemicals out of the bowl so this is a method that I feel safe using and that is also effective.

There's the list so far. I am waiting for my Febreeze to run out so I can make my own and also have the ingredients on hand for a mattress stain remover so you may see some add ons to this in the weeks to come. Hope you find this a handy go-to list to refer to - have fun trying them out and feel free to share your favorite DIY cleaning products! If you want to see what other DIY Cleaning Products have caught my interest, make sure to follow my DIY & Cleaning board on Pinterest.

***Just wanted to mention that I get all of my squirt bottles at the Dollar Store but you could easily reuse an old cleaning bottle as well. Just make sure to thoroughly clean it out so you don't have a reaction with mixed ingredients***



Homemade Laundry Detergent

I have been planning to make my own detergent for a few months now but was waiting to run out of my store bought detergent. That finally happened this week so I excitedly gathered all the ingredients I needed to make my own (I know, it is pathetic the things that excite me these days). Now there are literally dozens of homemade laundry detergent recipes out there. I settled on this one and will decide whether to stick with it after a few uses. I already did 3 loads of laundry with it yesterday and am pleased for the most part. I am thinking about upping the washing soda and borax though as I read that that helps with getting the clothes really clean.

Ingredients:

1/3 bar Fels Naptha

½ cup washing soda

½ cup borax powder

Two gallon bucket 

*essential oil (optional)

Directions:

Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan.
   

Add 6 cups water and heat it until the soap melts.  Add the washing soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved.

  

Remove from heat.  Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket.   Now add your soap mixture and stir.  Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir.
  

Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel. 

You use ½ cup per load.

*I also added 1/3 oz of orange scented essential oil for a nice scent. 

 **Mine didn't really gel after the 24 hours. But I read that that was normal for it to come out watery and that it can still be used that way. I am going to play around with this a little bit but was happy how it turned out for my first time. This really didn't take much time at all so it wasn't an extra hassle.


Now while I am pleased that one side effect of using homemade detergent is getting rid of the chemicals used to clean our clothes, the main reason I am doing it is to save money. To make sure this was really a money saving endeavor, I kept track of what I spent on all of the ingredients. Here is the breakdown:
-Fels Naptha: 0.99
-Arm & Hammer Washing Soda: 2.69
-Borax: 3.67
-Essential Oil: 4.99
TOTAL: 12.34

The Borax and Washing Soda will last me quite awhile but I am going to figure this based on the Fels Naptha and Essential Oil for which I get 3 batches. Each batch will do 64 loads of laundry. So a third of $12.34 is $4.11. 64 loads at $4.11 comes out to .06 cents a load. Now if we compare this to a leading brand of detergent (I looked at Tide): For 64 loads of Tide it is $14.99 which comes out to .23 cents a load. It is almost 4 times the cost. I say that makes it well worth the effort!
For those of you wondering where to find these items, they can be found at local grocery stores. I was able to find all 3 items together at Fred Meyer, which is what the prices were based on. I picked up the essential oil at a organic store.


*** For an updated version of this post please read HERE***