Cleaning spray recipe

[galadhir]

I don't think I'd make a good potion maker. I've only just realized that it makes a big difference which ingredient you add to which in what order.

To give context, I was making some kitchen-cleaning liquid. In the process of trying to use (and then throw away) less plastic, I stopped buying those neon-coloured spray bottles of kitchen cleaner and started making my own, which I put into a glass spray bottle which I then re-use continually.

This cleaning liquid is genuinely WAY better than the stuff I used to buy, and smells nicer. This is the recipe:

100mls castille liquid soap
2 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
400mls boiled water
Essential oils of choice (I use 3 drops each of lavender, tea-tree, citronella and peppermint, because they're supposed to have disinfectant qualities, and also they smell nice together.)

Previously I'd been adding the ingredients in the order given here, and I'd had a problem with undissolved bicarb clogging up the spray nozzle. This time I dissolved the bicarb in the hot water first, and only then added the soap and oils. Much better! It's amazing watching the misty clear of the dissolved bicarb water and the clear yellow of the soap turn solid white like milk when combined.

Anyway, I can't speak highly enough of this cleaning solution. It lifts dirt like the best 'activated oxygen' spray you can get from the supermarket, without smelling all throat-chokingly chemical. It does leave a white residue if you don't wipe it off thoroughly enough - but that helps you make sure you have wiped it off. And it means I don't buy plastic bottles any more.

(I did buy a 5L jug of liquid castille soap, but (a) it's lasted me a year and a half so far, and there's about 2L still to go, and (b) when it's finished it will be turned into a place to put a plant on my vertical wall in the garden.)

Comments

[dragonlady7]

Hee, potions-brewing to clean house with, I like that.
I'll keep that in mind. Though-- ugh, my middle-little sister gave me a gallon jug of concentrated Pine-Sol-- it was in her grocery delivery by accident in the midst of all this pandemic stuff, and it's huge and takes up too much room in her tiny apartment, and she gave it to me to get rid of, and I was going to try to find a store to return it to but nobody sells it, and I was like fine I'll use it, but I looked and it's-- so concentrated, a gallon will make one hundred and twenty-eight gallons. It seems far more wasteful and polluting to throw it out than to use it, but my god i don't mop my house that much and i don't know what on earth you clean with Pine-Sol if not floors? So I'm trying to think of ways to use it that won't poison me, LOL.
Maybe i can quietly clean the slaughterhouse floor with it when nobody's looking....

[galadhir]

*g* Do you have a bunch of neighbours who you talk to? You could refill all their bottles of floor cleaner for a nominal fee. You might end up being the seed to start a bulk-buying co-op :)