Vinegar & Baking Soda - This Spring's New Power Couple for Spring Cleaning
One of the glories of Spring is that everything feels new and fresh! It’s time to carry that feeling into your house with this Spring’s Power Couple: Baking Soda and White Vinegar! The perfect pair for chemical free Spring cleaning!
Baking soda and vinegar have the muscle to clean and disinfect without adding harmful chemicals or toxins to your environment. Worried about the smell? Add a little essential oil to your vinegar solution and it will help everything smell fresh. One of our favorites is lemon. It’s known to ease stress, fight fatigue and help stimulate the immune system AND it smells clean and fresh as a spring breeze!
The idea of spring cleaning is wipe away the winter. To air things out and to do a deeper clean. Here are a few ideas of ways you can add a little ‘freshness’ into your house.
Kitchen:
Along with cleaning the counters, wiping down the cupboards and cleaning out the drawers, here are a few more things to do to spring clean your kitchen.
Light bulbs in the kitchen are a magnet for grease and grim. A super cleaner to get your light bulbs clean is vinegar and water. A good place to start is one part vinegar and two parts water. Soak your sponge and gently wipe away the grease. This formula also works well for removing grim on counter tops, soap scum and hard water stains.
Those mugs were put to good use throughout the winter with warm coffee and tea and are looking a little worse for the wear. Wouldn’t it be nice to have shiny white mugs again? Add a little water to baking soda and make a paste. Rub the paste inside the mugs and rinse. Viola! Just like new.
Your oven has been on duty all winter, cooking up all that delicious comfort food, but now it needs a good cleaning and that stubborn, crusted food spills just won’t come off. Baking soda to the rescue! Take a 1/2 cup of baking soda and about three tablespoons of water and make a paste. Spread/ rub the paste on the bottom of the oven, steering clear of the heating elements. Let stand 12 hours. Take a damp sponge/towel and wipe down the oven. If there’s some leftover baking soda residue, don’t worry! Spray some vinegar and water on it. The vinegar will react with the baking soda and foam. Repeat until your oven is spick and span!
Don’t forget to clean your refrigerator. After removing all the drawers, use a 50/50 vinegar water solution to clean those crevices. Spray the mixture throughout the inside. Let it soak while you wash the bins in soapy water. Come back and wipe it down. If you have hard-to-clean areas or stains, make a paste with your baking soda and rub the stain. Let it sit for an hour, then spray the baking soda with vinegar and the stain should come right up. Vinegar is great for cleaning the refrigerator because it’s a natural disinfectant.
It’s time to welcome the bright colors of spring and wash away the remains of winter that may still be clinging to your windows. If your windows are really grimy you may want to wash them first with some warm soapy water with vinegar. Add 2 cups of water, 1/4 cup of vinegar and 1/2 tsp of dish soap. Spray your windows then wipe down with a microfiber towel or squeegee. For the second wash, make a mixture that’s 50% vinegar and 50% water and spray it on your windows. Wipe them down again. Your windows will have never looked so good and with so little effort! If there’s hard water spots, dip the end of your rag in vinegar and rub lightly.
How about your window blinds? Grab a pair of white cotton gloves and take the same vinegar solution you used to clean your windows, dip your hands in the solution, spread your fingers and run your fingers along the blinds. If you have tight slats, putting a rag dipped in your vinegar solution on top of a butter knife is a great way to get to those hard to clean corners.
As long as we’re talking about vinegar and baking soda, did you know you can effortlessly clean your silver by mixing 1/4 cup white vinegar with a tablespoon of baking soda. Soak your silver in the solution, take them out wash and dry. That easy!
Bathroom
Both baking soda and vinegar are great for cleaning your bathroom. Make a paste with 1/4 cup baking soda, 1 tablespoon dish soap, and 2 tablespoons vinegar. Mix until creamy. This is a great cleanser to clean your shower.
To clean the toilet, use a cup of vinegar. Swish it around and let it sit a minute. Scrub and flush. If you have hard water stains, after step one add one cup of baking soda and 2 cups of vinegar. Let sit for 10 minutes. Use a toilet brush and swish solution around in the bowl. Don’t flush. Let the vinegar baking soda solution do the work and let it sit for another 30 minutes. Scrub again and flush.
The Rest of the House
Along with dusting, you will want to wash your duvet cover, curtains, the dust ruffle, bathroom rugs, and the linens you will be storing until next winter. All of these can be magnets for dust and dirt. Baking soda and vinegar are here to help make sure your wash comes out smelling fresh and clean. This combo is also a natural fabric softener. Fill your washing machine and add 1/4 cup of baking soda to your wash. Baking soda helps improve the alkalinity of the water which makes your detergent work better. Adding 1/2 cup vinegar to the rinse cycle helps remove odors.
Oh, the floors!
Vinegar is a great disinfectant and will remove all those unwanted germs, grim, dirt and grease. For this mixture, take your favorite essential oil add about 10 drops to a mixture of 1/4 to 1/2 cup of vinegar to a gallon of water. For your carpets and furniture baking soda is great at removing odors. Sprinkle the baking soda on your couch and carpet and let it sit for several minutes. The longer it sits, the more it removes odor.