DIY Green All-Purpose Cleaner

All-purpose cleaner: 

I've tried a few different recipes, and settled on this one as a favorite (for now. I'm still new to this, so it may change). It's simple and effective.

• 2 cups infused vinegar (see Joybilee Farm's Thieves Vinegar recipe, or other recipe ideas below). 
• OR use 2 cups plain distilled vinegar plus 10 drops of a good cleaning essential oil (like anything citrus, or tea tree oil, etc. You can research good EOs with cleaning properties). 
• 2 cups water (I use our RO water for cleaning solutions).

I have come to think that vinegar infusions are GREAT. They don't require essential oils, which can be expensive, and they pull even more beneficial agents from the items you're infusing into the vinegar. Infused oils & vinegars will have different (and sometimes more) health benefits than essential oils do (read a good article about this here.)

Things I learned About Vinegar + Baking Soda: 
I've really enjoyed using a vinegar combo cleaner. I've tried a few different combos. One thing i learned is that you DO NOT combine baking soda and vinegar in the same mix. A lot of online recipes call for a little of both. But if you remember back to elementary school science, this creates a fizzy reaction that will eventually stop fizzing and will just be salt water, essentially. Salt water doesn't clean. Vinegar cleans, and baking soda cleans, but not together. 

Things I learned About Vinegar: 
If you don't want your house smelling like a pickle factory while cleaning, use infused vinegar or essential oil. The first time I put a cleaner together, I just used water and vinegar because I didn't have any essential oils like the online recipe called for. While I was cleaning, and the surfaces were wet, it just smelled like vinegar. I didn't really like that, and was afraid it would stink up the whole house. Vinegar is a strong smell. But after it dried, the smell went away and the surfaces were clean and smooth. I didn't want that smell again, so I looked around my kitchen and used citrus peels (grapefruit and clementines) and put them in the cleaning solution. It sat overnight and then next day when I used it to clean, it somehow changed the acidic vinegar smell. It didn't smell like vinegar anymore, and the smell got better day by day. 

That's when I decided I would create an infused vinegar that I could always have on had. My infused vinegar I'm working on now includes: distilled vinegar, citrus peels, cinnamon sticks, cloves, rosemary sprigs, lavender springs, lemon balm leave (I took some of the herbs I had in my herb garden last year, and I dehydrated a bit before the winter came. I'm so glad I did! I never thought I would use my lavender, especially, but I'm finding a use for it now.) The suggestion from Joybilee Farm is to let the vinegar solution steep for 4 weeks before use. But you can honestly use it any time. The longer it sits, though, it will be better infused with all these great items I listed, and it will smell less like vinegar when cleaning. 

If you have mason jars, this is probably something that you could get working on right away. You can make your own infused vinegars with a variety of herbs, spices, fruits and plants that hold known health benefits. 

Here are some other vinegar infusion ideas: 

• pine (read more about pine health benefits here)
• herb-tastic: lavender, clary sage, rosemary, mint (or whatever your favorite herbs form your garden may be)
• lime & mint (there are many benefits to any kind of citrus oil like lime, lemon, orange, and grapefruit.)
• orange & cinnamon (see benefits of orange or cinnamon)
• lemon & rosemary (read about the uses of lemon and of rosemary)
• thieves vinegar: citrus peels, whole cloves, rosemary, lavender, cinnamon stick (learn more about these ingredients here)
• ginger spice: Ginger root, cinnamon stick, cloves, allspice, nutmeg (read about the uses of these ingredients here.)
• rose petal (read about the uses and benefits of rose here.)