How to Clean Your Entire Home With Just 2 Natural Ingredients
Essential oils and pricey brands not needed
One of the very first changes I made when I moved over to the crunchy side was in the cleaning department. Looking back, it’s hard to believe how oblivious I was to the harm products like Pine Sol, Clorox, and Tide could do to myself and my family.
Check out this photo I took the day I had enough… I didn’t even take my own advice and only switch out products once I’d used them up. Nope, one day, I just threw them all away.
I was done with breathing in these chemicals, letting them absorb into my skin (because I rarely wore gloves), and I was done soaking my clothes in them when I did laundry (I also threw away my Tide pods and those smelly dryer sheets).
Beyond the harm they can do, I’ve also realized that we just don’t need this many products to keep our homes and clothes clean. The same goes for our skincare and our makeup.
The corporations who make these products want us to believe we do. They want us to think we need a laundry detergent AND a fabric softener AND an in-wash scent booster AND dryer sheets just to wash one load of laundry. What a load of crap (no pun intended).
They also want us to think we need a different product for every appliance in our kitchen and every room in our homes. They want the cabinet under our kitchen sink to be PACKED with all the products they manufacture even though they’re making us sick.
How Do Cleaning Products Harm Us?
The Environmental Working Group investigated more than 2,000 cleaning supplies on the American market and found that many contain substances linked to serious health problems. From their website:
Fumes from some cleaning products may induce asthma in otherwise healthy individuals. A large and growing body of evidence links frequent use of many ordinary cleaning supplies at home or on the job with development of asthma and other respiratory problems.
Common cleaning ingredients can be laced with the carcinogenic impurity 1,4-dioxane. Independent tests have detected the presence of 1,4-dioxane in numerous name-brand cleaning supplies. Other products contain preservatives that release low levels of cancer-causing formaldehyde… Although government scientific and regulatory agencies have focused considerable attention on chemicals suspected of causing cancer, they have devoted far fewer resources to evaluating substances that may be toxic to the brain and nervous system, the hormone system and other organs.
Basically, the chemicals used in the majority of these cleaners (even down to the fragrances used) can cause skin reactions (like the chronic eczema I used to have), respiratory issues, allergies, they can wreck your microbiome and disrupt hormones triggering auto-immune conditions, and as stated above, can even cause cancer.
Hop on their website to learn more—they share a lot of helpful information and a great guide to choosing safer cleaning products.
Non-Toxic Cleaning Made Simple
Because word has really spread about harmful cleaning products in recent years, it’s easier than ever to find products at the store that are safe to use. I’m so thankful for that!
But if you really want to simplify your cleaning routine and drastically reduce the amount of supplies you buy, all you need are two ingredients:
White Vinegar
Castile Soap
If you want to be even more minimal, you can accomplish everything with just vinegar. You could even wash your clothes with vinegar—lots of people do it! But I’ll be honest, I don’t love the smell of vinegar, so I prefer to do most of my cleaning with my Castile soap solution and I save the vinegar for a few specific situations.
If you open the cabinet under my sink, you’ll find two glass amber spray bottles. One is half vinegar, half water and the other is 1/4 Castile soap and the 3/4 water. And I clean my entire home with just those two bottles.
I use the Castile soap solution for:
Countertops
Stainless steel (like getting smudges off the fridge, dishwasher, etc.)
The stove
Dining room tables, chairs, and highchairs
Mopping floors (I throw about 1/4 cup of Castile soap into my mop bucket)
Bathrooms, including the sinks, showers, bath tubs, etc.
Dusting bookshelves (spray the towel, not the furniture)
I use the vinegar for:
Anything that requires a little disinfecting like toilets and cleaning up after a sick child
All glass—vinegar is seriously the best glass cleaner!
Ya’ll, that’s seriously it! These two powerhouse ingredients can take care of any mess in your home, and the best part is, they’re both so affordable. You can find a big bottle of vinegar anywhere for less than $5 (and it will last you months) and Castile soap is available in most big box stores like Walmart and Target. I buy mine from The Good Fill—a local plastic free, zero waste store with affordable prices. I only have to fill my 16oz mason jar at their store about twice a year because a little goes a long way.
What About Laundry?
Like I said earlier, you can even use vinegar as a laundry detergent. Here’s a great video on Instagram on how to do so if you’re interested.
I’ve gone a different route. I love Nellie’s Laundry Soda and Oxygen Brightener for washing clothes. I tried the laundry soda on it’s own, but quickly realized our clothes got much cleaner with the oxy added in. There’s no scent, the ingredients are clean, and each load of laundry only requires one tablespoon of the powder. I can buy this at The Good Fill too, but you can also get it online, buy it in bulk at Costco.com, and I often find bags of it at TJ Maxx/Marshalls/Homegoods for really cheap (like $6), so keep your eyes peeled!
This stain remover from The Good Fill also works sooooo well. I’ve gotten days old stains (I’m talking spaghetti, watermelon, you name it) out of my kids clothes with this stuff—and it’s made of totally clean ingredients ❤️
If you’re into making soaps and stuff at home, here’s a trusted recipe for liquid laundry detergent and powder laundry detergent from Our Oily House (you can probably skip all the essential oils if you want to save money—personally, I prefer zero scent). I’m sure buying these ingredients once would make several batches that last a really long time!
Whatever route you take, I hope you know that cleaning your home and your clothes can be so simple. We don’t need a bunch of chemicals and anti-bacterial products—our homes don’t need to be sterile! You’re not going to get sick more often because you stop using Clorox wipes around your house—in fact, for my own family, the more non-toxic we became (in food and lifestyle), the less often we got sick year after year.
Do you have a favorite non-toxic way to clean your home and clothes that is different? I’d love to know! Let me know in the comments below.
Yes! Many do not realize the effects that household cleaners have on their health. Also one of the first things that I change in our home and surprise...my husband wasn't as stuffy in the mornings. I have made my own all purpose scrub for years. baking soda, castille soap, a little water, a little vinegar. And if you want you can add some essential oils. This works great for everything, countertops, sinks, toilets, showers...
Vinegar user here too!