DIY Allergy Friendly Homemade Furniture Dusting Spray

Dusting is not my favorite chore. I tried to make it easier by using a feather duster to dust the stuff on bookshelves and other hard to reach up too high places.

Until my allergist put the kibosh on that. He says feather dusters push more dust around than they pick up (including my fancy ostrich feather duster as well as the even fancier lambs wool dusters.)
Which for most of you will still work all fine and dandy but not for me. I have a litany of seasonal allergens including and especially dust mites.  So how exactly am I supposed to dust the furniture without commercial dusting sprays or a feather or lambs wool duster?

In this instance, my allergist recommended the best way to clean dust and dust mites is also the most non toxic and cheapest cleaner in the world – water!

How to Make Nontoxic and CHEAP! DIY Dust & Allergen Furniture Spray

 

Pin this post for later!

 

In my research I found homemade dusting spray recipes that added a bunch of extra stuff like castile soap, olive oil, vinegar to the water which are absolutely unnecessary.

While those extra ingredients might allow the water to pick up the dust, they also leave a residue behind which in the case of the soap and vinegar can attract more dust to the surface. Vinegar is an acid and if used over a long period of time without removing the residue could pickle wood finishes.

The same goes with adding essential oils to a handmade dusting spray. Add them if you want a nice smell but remember oil and water don’t mix. You’ll need to keep shaking the spray bottle to mix the essential oil and water before using. Depending upon the essential oil you use, it could damage the surface you use it on. So it’s best to test the mixture on a surface before you use it.

Or you can just use plain, ol’ water to pickup dust. It works great!

You will need:

A spray bottle

Water

Dust cloth (I cut old towels to use for cleaning. If I’m in a crazy mood I zig zag stitch around the edges to keep the towels from fraying and unraveling. Other times, I just cut them down and go.)

1. Fill the spray bottle with water and screw on the spray pump.

2. Dampen the dust cloth with water from the spray bottle. Don’t soak the dust rag. One or two sprays from the bottle will make it damp enough to pick up dust without ruining or water logging your wood furniture or surfaces (which was a concern of mine when I first started using water as homemade dusting spray.)

3. Wipe the surface to pick up dust.

4. Repeat repeat, and repeat Steps 2 and 3 until your house is clean and dust allergy free!
What do you for cleaning and dusting?


Did you enjoy this post? Get more like it by subscribing to the Condo Blues RSS Feed or to Condo Blues by Email.