Do baking soda and vinegar really work?

[roses1001]

I'm totally new to this non-toxic cleaning thing, but I really like the idea. I *hate* using those chemicals to clean. Anyway, is it really possible to clean my kitchen and bathroom exclusively with baking soda and vinegar? Will it keep them sparkling clean and odor free?

Also, how often do you clean your bathrooms? Once a week, maybe?

Oh, I have another question. When you use vinegar to clean, doesn't it leave a strong smell? I guess it goes away when it dries, but how long does that take?

Thanks,
Laura

[Elijah's Mama]

Yes, it is totally possible to clean your kitchen and bathroom with just vinegar and baking soda. I use vinegar to clean the floors, counters, glass, appliances and the like. The baking soda works like a mild Ajax for sinks, toilets, or when appliances are really caked. Both of these work great for normal sorts of things, but I do supplement with eco-friendly products for tougher jobs, which you can buy at co-ops, through mail order, or on the internet.

And yes, the vinegar is quite pungent, but I've come to sort of like the smell, and it goes away as it dries. I'd say you can smell it for a half hour, tops.

If you want really good info on this topic, go to http://www.checnet.org/. It has specific "recipes" for homemade products, plus analyzes all the potential toxins your home. It has made me become as chemical free as possible.

Best of luck!

[Curious]

I love the way baking soda and vinegar foam when mixed. It's a great combination for getting water minearal crud off my stainless steel dish drainer. But I HATE the smell of vinegar.

[AmyG]

I clean my bathroom with vinegar. It does smell like pickles for a while, but I just stay out until the smell is gone. The other day I couldn't find my squirt bottle of vinegar so I used an old bottle of pine cleaner I had before I *converted.* IMHO, the smell of that was much stronger. I'm going through morning sickness right now and really don't get bothered at all by the smell of vinegar.

[glh]

A great book for making your own cleaning recipes is "Clean House, Clean Planet" by Karen Logan. I got it at Borders but you could also get it on Amazon.com. She uses a lot of essential oils in the recipes to make things smell great. I've made all my own cleaners (except laundry and dish soap) since I got her book.

[Super Pickle]

Essential oils do make the vinegar solution smell better, but it can get expensive. Opening a window while you clean helps too. But the fumes don't cause headaches, like Pine Sol and Fantastik do.

Baking soda is great for erasing scuff marks and scrubbing the tub and bathroom sink; diluted vinegar cuts grease on the kitchen floor and counters; and washing soda with a little elbow grease even gets stains out of carpet.

[Pupcake]

Originally posted by Super Pickle
Essential oils do make the vinegar solution smell better, but it can get expensive.

True, but they don't have to be! We buy bulk (5 lbs) of sweet orange essential oil from http://www.essentialoil.com for just over $20.00.

(Of course, they do have oils that cost a lot, too. Some of the prices are eye popping. Myrrh is over $300.00 per 16 ounces )

The last time we bought the 5# of sweet orange oil was summer '99 and we just ran out. We mix it with vinegar and water, vinegar and baking soda, or by itself for cleaning greasy messes. We've also mixed it, lavender, lemon, or cinnamon leaf oil with baking soda to make our own "carpet fresh".

HTH!

[Super Pickle]

Pupcake, that sounds like a great idea. I would love to buy essential oils cheaply in bulk. How do you store it and how do you measure out the drops?

[cottonwood]

I LOVE baking soda. I use it on everything. Let the surface soak under a baking soda paste and a scrubber will get off the tough stuff. The only thing with baking soda is you have to rinse well or it leaves behind a film. Vinegar I can't bear. Though it's true that you can't beat vinegar and baking soda together. And baking soda does absorb odor (I keep some at the bottom of my garbage can) but I don't know how you would use in that way in the bathroom.

In the bathroom I put one of those bleach tablets in the tank. Are they totally awful? Not sure I want to know because it seems like the only thing that keeps the smell down. Anybody know of any alternatives? The rest I clean with a few squirts of dish detergent in a bucket of water, and I have been known to use brillo pads on tough deposits though I'm sure that damages the porcelain. I have a washable rug in front of the toilet to catch stray droplets that I wash every couple of days.

[Pupcake]

Super Pickle,

In the long term, essential oils have to be stored in glass, and kept away from light, to maintain their integrity. Essentialoil.com sends the big bulk sizes in a soft, squishy plastic container (to save you the s/h of bulky, breakable glass me thinks) with a dispenser nozzle. So we dispensed ours out into mayonaise sized, lidded, glass jars that we found at Wal-Mart. I stored them under the kitchen sink so they'd be in the dark and cool.

I used to make fragranced bath salts so I'm used to handling the big jars and adding dab, dash, pinch measurements. You can measure them out with a plastic dropper, which you can also find at WalMart, PetsMart, online, etc.

HTH!

I forgot to add in the last post: DH likes to pour some (a good bit!) down the disposal and let it sit to get rid of the oniony stink - sweetwater, that would probably do for the toilet tank too.
Not exactly sure how it would work logistically, though.