5 Ways to Deep Clean Your Home Naturally
Many people have all experienced cleaning with toxic chemicals at one point. And some of them have experienced suffering from headaches and other allergic reactions afterwards after inhaling fumes from bleaches or some artificially scented cleansers. Deep cleaning your home while destroying your health is not worth it. There are actually more effective and health-friendly natural cleaners that you can find in your pantry.
Here are some of the products from your pantry that you can use to deep clean your home naturally:
1. Use Baking Soda as your Deodorizer, Cleanser and Polisher
Baking soda has many uses. Aside from baking, they are good for almost anything.
For Cleaning:
Simply sprinkle baking soda on drains, bathtubs, kitchen sinks and counters, or you could mix a little water to form a paste and scrub away. Baking soda can also remove greasy stains on carpets by sprinkling over the stain and letting it sit overnight before vacuuming.
For Deodorizing:
To deodorize your carpets and upholstery, sprinkle baking soda over them. Allow it to sit for about 15 minutes before vacuuming it off.
For Clearing out Drains:
Pour half a cup of baking soda, followed by half a cup of vinegar. By this time, you would feel like a chemist as the two ingredients react and begin to foam. Let it sit for several hours before flushing.
For Silver Polishing:
Wipe the surfaces with a 3:1-ratio paste mixture of baking soda and water. Rinse it off with warm water and finish with a dry cloth.
2. Use Vinegar and Lemon Juice for Disinfecting and Cleaning
Vinegars and lemons have natural acids that can remove stains and disinfect and sanitize your home.
For Disinfecting:
Mix vinegar or lemon juice with water to clean toilet bowls, sinks, kitchen counters, floors, and other places that you want to disinfect.
To sanitize and clean cutting boards, rub lemon with its juice over them and let it sit for 10 minutes before rinsing.
For Cleaning:
To steam clean your microwave oven, put a bowl of lemon slices with warm water inside and run the microwave for 5 minutes. Then wipe it off with a clean cloth.
To clean carpet stains, apply 1/3 cup of vinegar with 2/3 cup of water to the stain. Wipe it off with a clean cloth or towel. If the stain doesn’t come off all at once, repeat the procedure.
Use vinegar for cleaning mirrors, windows and other glass surfaces.
For Removing other Stains and Tarnishes:
To remove brass tarnish, simply boil the brass with equal amounts of vinegar and water. Lemon Juice also works well with removing stubborn stains like water deposits and tarnished silvers.
3. Use Essential Oils as Antiseptic Cleaners and Air Fresheners
Essential oils are beginning to be popular nowadays. More and more people have discovered the power of these pure, unadulterated and concentrated oils. There are a lot of benefits from these oils and not just heath-wise. They can be good disinfectants and cleaning agents too!
Mix water with a few drops of essential oils like lemon or tee tree oil to clean kitchen counters, wall tiles, glass windows and mirrors. Also, diffusing essential oils like lemon, lavender, peppermint or vanilla can kill pathogens in the air and add a pleasant scent to your house and uplift your mood.
4. Olive Oil for Varnished Wood
To clean your varnished wood furnishings, spray a mixture of 2 tbsp. olive oil, 1 tbsp. vinegar and 1 qt. warm water over the furnishings and wipe-dry it with a soft cloth.
5. Use Coarse Salt to Add Abrasive Power
Need a little scrubbing power? Add coarse salt to your cleaners. This will help you clean surfaces easily. Salt can also be an oven cleaner. By immediately covering spills with salt, they would eventually dry off when the oven cools down into a crusty powder. They will then be easy to clean!
Who said that common kitchen ingredients can only be used for cooking? By switching to these natural ways of cleaning, we can avoid the unnecessary risk of destroying our overall health.
So, the next time you see a natural kitchen ingredient around, stop and think. There might be another good way to use it aside from just for food.