Okay, so let’s jump right in to 31 Days to Green Clean today! I’m excited!
To begin with, you need the right tools, the right ingredients. It’s really pretty easy to use green and non-toxic cleaners all around your home if you have just a few simple ingredients on hand to use to make basic homemade cleaners.
Basic Homemade Cleaning Ingredients
- White Vinegar
- Baking Soda
- Castile Soap
- Tea Tree Oil
- Hydrogen Peroxide
- Natural Dish Soap (I use Seventh Generation)
These are your basic necessary ingredients and will allow you to make all different kinds of homemade cleaners to use around your home. You should stock up on these, buying the largest containers that you can, and more than one at a time if they are on sale, so that you always have them on hand when you need to make a new batch of homemade cleaner.
The great thing about these ingredients is that most of them are very inexpensive! Green and homemade cleaning is not only better for you and your family, it will save you money too! The most expensive items are the castile soap and tea tree oil, but they are both very concentrated so a little goes a long way and a bottle will last you for quite a while. Also, they are both multi-functional, so you will get lots of use from them all around your home.
There are other ingredients that are nice to have on hand, like lemon juice and/or lemon or other citrus essential oil, washing soda, rubbing alcohol, and possibly Borax (some people do not feel comfortable using Borax, I use it for laundry and feel okay about it), but these are not essential for making everyday homemade cleaners.
Over the next few weeks we’ll be talking about how you can use these basic ingredients to clean all around your home. So the next time you’re running errands, make sure to stock up. Or if you’d rather order online, you can find all of these products in my Amazon store (but you can probably find better deals on most of the things at Target or the grocery store).
Do you keep these ingredients on hand for your homemade cleaning? Anything I missed that you would add to my list of basic ingredients?
Go here to read all the posts in the 31 Days to Green Clean series.
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This is great list! I can’t seem to ever buy a big enough container of vinegar…I think I need to find 5 gallon buckets somewhere 🙂
Can’t wait to read the rest of the series!
Thanks Christine! 5 gallons of vinegar would be awesome!
I’d add borax and washing soda to that list. Amen for BIG containers! I feel like I’m buying a new gallon of vinegar every week!
Hi Julia,
What do you use borax and washing soda for? I have them on my “Nice to have, but not essential list”, cause I only use them for a few things. I buy vinegar almost every week too!
I use them in dishwasher soap, laundry soap, my all purpose spray has both I think, too. Washing soda + hydrogen peroxide is a WONDERFUL stain remover (think oxy clean), too!
Thanks for the list! I was noticing those “natural” wipes at the store use thymol (from thyme oil) – do you know anything about using it for disinfecting?
Hi Amanda, I really don’t know anything about using thyme oil for disinfecting. I rely on Tea Tree Oil for a natural disinfectant and have found that it works really well for me. 🙂
Yes! this is pretty much the basis of all natural cleaners.
Over the years I also often use lemon juice, olive oil soap, Marseille soap (looove this), washing soda and borax as well as various essential oils
I’ve been making my own natural cleaners for more than 5 years and besides saving A TON of money, I’m really happy with the clean house air my son lives in!
Ooh, what is Marseille soap? That’s one I haven’t heard of before.
savon de Marseille is very well in Europe as a detergent soap. It’s based mainly in olive oil but other vegetable oils are used nowadays. It has the most amazing, fresh smell ever and it cleans exceptionally well everything in the house. Whenever I clean the walls the house smells awesome for days
Where do you find the Marseille soap?
in Europe in every supermarket at the laundry section.
in USA I don’t know but try amazon.com or shops with natural cosmetics/detergents/essential oils etc
I am so glad I ran across your posts. I was just getting ready to clean someone’s shower with the vinegar/bashing sida mixture. I have also read to heat the vinegar then mix in the other ingredient, blue dawn dish soap. Equal parts of each. I think this is too much soap for one thing. Lol my buisness is cleaning homes and I don’t like breathing toxic fumes. Also I have a lot of homes with glass shower doors and they also have hard water. Not a good mixture. Lol