My Cleaning Companion
August 7th, 2009 by Ashley
I’ve been meaning to share for awhile about one of my favorite household helpers:
I love vinegar.
I was a little hesitant to try it out in the beginning, but after using it for awhile I have to admit it’s become a little bit of an obsession.
You can read all about the disinfecting powers of vinegar here.
You can also check out 1001 tips for using vinegar. This is where I got a lot of my uses for it when I was starting out.
So what do I use vinegar for?
1. Laundry. It disinfects, works as a fabric softener (I no longer use traditional fabric softener), and is a great odor remover when added into a warm water wash cycle. It works great for smelly dishrags, towels, stinky socks, and of course the ultimate dilema in our house, smelly little girl panties. I have found nothing other than bleach that so effectively eliminates the smell of urine. Hope that’s not too much info for you…just trying to be helpful.
2. Cleaning Bathrooms. In light of the above info, I also use vinegar to clean my bathrooms. I’ll bring out the bleach when we’ve had an illness in the house, but for everyday normal cleaning I just use a squirt bottle of half vinegar, half water. It works great. I’m thrilled to be able to eliminate all of the chemical residue that used to be in our bathrooms, where little girls like to touch everthing and then put their hands in their mouths. One bit of disclosure though…cleaning the toilets with vinegar will take a little more “work” than the good old Clorox gel. Just so you know. 
3. Unclogging Drains. I learned this trick from my friend’s grandma… when the drain in the kitchen sink is going a little slow, I will pour some baking soda in it, then add vinegar. This keeps the sink draining smoothly all the time.
Those are the main, daily things I use vinegar for. Sometimes I’ll find other random uses though.
So, onto the question I know everyone will ask…doesn’t it smell bad?
In my experience the smell of vinegar only lingers for about a half an hour, at most. And once it’s gone things just smell clean. It seems to neutralize odors in such a way that there just isn’t a smell at all. So instead of a clean smell as in a Pine-sol smell or a Bleach smell, it’s just a clean fresh smell.
And the best thing…you can buy it in giant bottles at Costco for practically nothing. So in addition to cleaning effectively, and minimizing chemical exposure in the house, I’m also saving money. Pretty great, huh?
So tell me, what are you thoughts on vinegar?
*image courtesy of google.
Posted in Favorite Things, Home
Love it too. Have you read up on hydrogen peroxide? Also quite wonderful.
Comment by jennee — August 8, 2009 @ 5:08 pm
thanks! i’m gonna try it.
Comment by Tara — August 14, 2009 @ 10:37 am