Condo Blues: Homemade Lavender All-purpose Cleaner

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Homemade Lavender All-purpose Cleaner

I made a super scum busting and disinfecting all-purpose cleaner that is all natural AND smells like the sweet, sweet smell of all natural lavender.





Lavender is a natural antiseptic. In fact, medics in World War I bound soldier’s wounds with sprigs of lavender to fight infection when their regular medications ran low.

Vinegar is a natural disinfectant, which makes it a great natural cleaner for most things although not everyone is fond of the smell.

After some DIY cleaner experiments with my lavender bush based on last winter’s all-purpose orange cleaner recipe, I came up a super scum busting antiseptic disinfecting all natural all-purpose cleaner

How to Make Lavender Antiseptic and Disinfecting All-Purpose Cleaner
 




You will need:

Lavender buds (if you don’t have lavender bushes like I do, you can buy lavender buds here.)
Vinegar (or rubbing alcohol or vodka if you want to use your cleaner on natural stone)
Dishwashing detergent (I’m a fan of plant based dish detergent but you can use whatever is your favorite)
Empty Jar with a lid.
Sieve
Funnel
Empty spray bottle
Time

Make it:

1.       Place the lavender buds in the empty jar and pour vinegar (or rubbing alcohol or vodka) over the lavender buds. The amount you need to use will depend upon the size of your jar and how much cleaner you want to make.



2.       Put the lid on the jar and shake the contents.

3.       Wait several weeks and shake the jar to mix the contents every couple of days, or in my case, when I walked into the utility room and remembered I was supposed to shake the jar every couple of days. It doesn’t seem to matter if you put the jar in sun light or not, my lavender steeped into the vinegar both ways.

4.       Strain the lavender from the vinegar (or rubbing alcohol or vodka) using the sieve.

5.       Use the funnel to pour the lavender vinegar (or rubbing alcohol) into the spray bottle.

6.       Add a healthy sploosh or two of dishwashing detergent to the spray bottle, screw on the top, and shake the bottle until thoroughly mixed.

7.       Clean up!



I use the rubbing alcohol version of Lavender antiseptic disinfecting all-purpose cleaner to clean the granite countertops in my half bathroom because the vinegar based Lavender antiseptic disinfecting all-purpose cleaner can mar natural stone.

Both versions do wonders on sinks and bath rub rings, and smell great too!


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