The beauty of vinegar
ayla whitehead
Vinegar is a beautiful thing! It is cheap, it is natural, it has some kick-but cleaning capabilities, and it is easy enough to work with that any adult can figure out how to use this stuff for green cleaning. Most of the other cleaners are easily substituted with vinegar. Vinegar diluted with water make great window cleaner, floor (tile, wood, lanolium) cleaner, carpet cleaner (if you infuse your vinegar with dark fruit such as strawberries be sure not to use the colored vinegar on light carpets), counter cleaner, bathroom cleaner, and when mixed with baking soda makes a really great heavy duty grout cleaner, tub cleaner, or any other surface cleaner that you may use products such as softscrub on. Pretty much covered your whole cleaning arsenal right? :)
The only downfall to using vinegar is the smell. To fix that issue I infuse my vinegar by using things that I have on hand and “soaking” them in the vinegar. Some of my favorite things to infuse are: putting in the leaf ends I cut off of my organic strawberries, using left over peels from lemons or oranges, get a wad of mint leaves to toss in there, and I’ve even used cinnamon sticks or rosemary sprigs to toss into the jug to help with the scent. The longer you leave it the stronger the infusion which means the stronger the scent. I typically let mine soak or “infuse” for about two weeks or so. Then you just pour the vinegar through a strainer into a pretty mason jar, toss the solid stuff left behind (or compost it, feed it to chickens, i don’t know...get creative lol), and you are ready to use the non-stinky vinegar as you normally would in your cleaning supplies.
Why don’t I add a few drops of essential oils to my vinegar rather than having to wait two weeks for it to infuse? Well…I have tried that again and again and again BUT each time the vinegar breaks down the oils and with each passing day the vinegar smell gets stronger and stronger until you can’t even smell the essential oil you put in. For me it felt like a waste of money. By infusing I am using up something that I would have normally thrown away so the smell is completely free for me. With the oils I am constantly adding more drops and I feel like those drops could be used better on other things. Trust me, it is a little more time consuming BUT I promise it will be worth it :)