Cleaning Products?

[englishteacheralex]

I've been getting into those "Clean With Me" videos on Youtube. I notice that the people doing the cleaning are constantly spraying surfaces with various cleansers. Mrs. Meyers brand is popular, but it seems to have a lot of chemicals that aren't great for people.

I'm working on upping my cleaning game, but I don't really want to go out and buy a bunch of cleaning products, especially if they have a bunch of dubious chemicals.

I've never been an exceptionally tidy person and generally just use vinegar/water/dishsoap in a spray bottle for most cleaning. But vinegar smells awful. What do y'all swear by for cheap/effective/not-filled-with-possibly-dangerous-chemicals cleaning products?

[crocheted_stache]

I'm also not a Mrs. Meyers fan. I've been liking some of the Grove brand concentrates for low fumes, mild botanical fragrances, and general effectiveness, but they have high minimums for free shipping if you don't subscribe to their VIP thing. At least when you order the minimum, they'll pack it all in one box, unlike all the places that put each item in a separate shipment. AFAIK it's not in stores.

Regardless of which one you use, the missing ingredient in any cleaning liquid is time. Spray ~60 seconds ahead of where you're wiping and you'll scrub less because your cleaner will have some time to dissolve the crud.

[stoaX]

After years of using the vinegar/water/dish soap concoctions I think I've become used to the smell (it doesn't last long) and now associate it with cleaning.

[cool7hand]

+1 on the smell of vinegar cleaning solutions quickly fading

[rosarugosa]

I'm also not a Mrs. Meyers fan. I've been liking some of the Grove brand concentrates for low fumes, mild botanical fragrances, and general effectiveness, but they have high minimums for free shipping if you don't subscribe to their VIP thing. At least when you order the minimum, they'll pack it all in one box, unlike all the places that put each item in a separate shipment. AFAIK it's not in stores.

Regardless of which one you use, the missing ingredient in any cleaning liquid is time. Spray ~60 seconds ahead of where you're wiping and you'll scrub less because your cleaner will have some time to dissolve the crud.

Definite wisdom here!

[chemistk]

We don't clean everything with vinegar, there's just some cleaners that are better than others: bleach for toilets and mold/mildew that inevitably happens in bathrooms, barkeeper's friend for many kitchen surfaces (deep clean only), windex for windows and glossy surfaces.

That being said - I've got a little secret that helps with the vinegar smell. Next time you prepare your cleaning solution, add a few drops (or up to a tsp if you're making a gallon or two) of peppermint extract, and a splash of vanilla extract (better if you can use the imitation kind).

I promise that, while not completely gone, the vinegar smell will be mostly masked and your room/house will have the much more pleasant smell of an after-dinner mint.

[tthree]

Hot water, powder tide, bleach.  And follow gocleanco on Instragram for inspiration.  My house has never been cleaner!

[Goldendog777]

Add a few drops of peppermint to the vinegar.  It helps mask the smell. 

[Hibernaculum]

Same boat for me. Meyers has a chemical smell that I really don't care for, and vinegar just makes me think somebody spilled their salad all over the house. I use Simple Green. You can get a gallon of it at your local home improvement store. I dilute it about 15:1 and use it in spray bottles. I find a gallon lasts us about a year. Otherwise, Bar Keeper's Friend, Bon Ami, window cleaner, and some bleach-y stuff for bathroom/tiles, and that covers about 95% of what we need. Of course, the other 5% is covered by about 12 bottles of random half-full bottles of special-purpose cleaners that my wife picks up from time to time, but that's another story...

[englishteacheralex]

Thanks so much everybody!

I did a bunch of research in addition to this thread and I made an all-purpose spray for our granite countertops and stainless appliances out of dishsoap and isopropyl alcohol. The smell is just a notch better than vinegar but I read vinegar isn't good for granite over time and alcohol disinfects and evaporates fast so as not to leave streaks on the appliances.

So far, so good. I'd probably like a drop of an essential oil but I don't feel like buying anything for the project. I already have tea tree oil that I bought for de-lousing my kids--I like the smell of that just fine. Anybody know if tea tree oil is ok for cleaning? I'd just add a drop or two to try to mask the smell of the alcohol.

[chemistk]

Thanks so much everybody!

I did a bunch of research in addition to this thread and I made an all-purpose spray for our granite countertops and stainless appliances out of dishsoap and isopropyl alcohol. The smell is just a notch better than vinegar but I read vinegar isn't good for granite over time and alcohol disinfects and evaporates fast so as not to leave streaks on the appliances.

So far, so good. I'd probably like a drop of an essential oil but I don't feel like buying anything for the project. I already have tea tree oil that I bought for de-lousing my kids--I like the smell of that just fine. Anybody know if tea tree oil is ok for cleaning? I'd just add a drop or two to try to mask the smell of the alcohol.

Tea tree oil swill be fine, the soap will prevent what little amounts you use from leaving a residue.

[meadow lark]

I buy the gallon containers of white vinegar and put my citrus peels into the vinegar gallon, whenever I eat citrus. I think orange peels smell the best.  When you pour the vinegar into the spray bottles the citrus peels stay stuck in the gallon bottle.  We don’t have a decent recycling program here so I don’t mind just throwing away the bottle with the peels in it when I run out of vinegar.  If we did have recycling I would probably cut the bottle before I threw it away to get rid of the peels.