How to Go Green with your Very Own Home-Made Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products

Having had the warmest Christmas in living memory, you may now be wondering about when it’s best to start spring cleaning your home. While it may be a little early to start cleaning in earnest, cleaning your home little by little now will save you a massive job come March. If you’re looking to get a head start on the dust bunnies, it helps to know how you can do so without using harsh chemicals that leave both your sinuses and the environment suffering. Here are some of the top ways you can go green with your very own home-made eco-friendly cleaning products. The tips in the guide are from expert cleaners who are based in London are specialists in carpet cleaning.

Bathroom
First things first – your bathroom is always one of the toughest tasks in any cleaning spree. Toilets can be tackled with a heavy-duty deodorising scrub made of half a cup of baking soda and around 10 drops of tea tree oil. Pour these directly into your toilet bowl and add a quarter of a cup of vinegar – scrub away while the mixture fizzes and you’ll be left with a clean, odour-free toilet in no time at all.

If you’re suffering from black mould in the bathroom, get a spray bottle and load it with pure white vinegar. Spray a fine mist over the mouldy area and leave for 30 minutes – rinse it down with the shower head and a sponge and you should be left with a mould-free area. If the mould persists, you can go one-up with something slightly more heavy-duty – a little liquid castile soap mixed with baking soda.

Kitchen
If you’re looking for a bleach-free way of disinfecting your kitchen, two cups of water, 3 tablespoons of liquid soap and 20-25 drops of tea tree oil make for a fantastic disinfectant which doesn’t make you lightheaded as you work. This is ideal for kitchen tops which are marble, granite or stone too – the acidity of similar vinegar-based recipes will attack your kitchen counters, causing damage to your worktops.

The oven is always a tricky one to tackle – the baked-on grease is notoriously hard to remove, down to the point where you can buy off-the shelf heavy duty chemicals to wage war on your kitchen with. There’s no need for this if you know what you’re doing though. Turn your oven up to about 50°C, to that it’s warm, not hot. One warm, you can use your spray bottle of vinegar to attack the dirt – spray the vinegar until the dirty areas are nicely coated and then pouring baking soda directly on top. Turn off the oven, let it all cool down and then grab a wet towel. At this point you can scrub away the dirt with minimal effort. Once clean, you can get to work deodorising your oven – grab a heat-proof pan, add two capfuls of vanilla extract in the pan and then turn the oven up to about 150°C for an hour. Your whole house will smell like warm cookies and your oven won’t smell like an oven – it’s a win-win!

Windows, floors and furniture
Finally we have the windows, floors and furniture – three of the biggest tasks when it comes to spring cleaning. As long as you’re not working on anything wooden (wooden floors, wooden tables, etc.,) you can get away with virtually the same cleaning product here. Mix 1 part white vinegar with 3-4 parts warm water, and scrub away with a mop or a rag. If you’re looking to polish your non-wooden furniture, simply swap the water for olive oil. If you’re looking to polish wooden furniture, the vinegar is a little strong – go for a mix of 1 part lemon juice to 2 parts olive oil before wiping down with a soft cloth