Recipe for an Eco-Friendly Household Cleaner

We’ve stopped buying Cif and Bang as I’ve been making our own eco-friendly and completely bio--degradable spray cleaner. I mixed this up and poured it into an old spray bottle and we’ve been using it to clean sinks, bathrooms, the kitchen and even my MacBook’s white keyboard.

For the last, I prefer it to the sudsy Bang (which, I must admit cleans remarkably) and it doesn’t leave any residue like Cif.

As most spray bottles are about 500ml, you might do well to mix up a quarter portion at a time. And remember - the mix separates if it’s been sitting too long so shake it well before use.

With a bit of experimenting, I’ve also found that a little more baking soda makes it even more effective.


INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup baking soda
2 litre water
half a lemon

TO PREPARE
Mix up the vinegar, baking soda and water. Squeeze in the lemon, taking out any seeds that may fall in as you do so. Pour into a spray bottle.

Make sure you let the foaming stop and the mixture subside before you screw back the cap of the spray bottle or it'll bulge out under pressure.

You'll have to shake it up before use as the mix starts to separate when left to stand.

It settles when left standing, so shake it well before use!

TO USE
Use this as you would any spray cleaner. A wipe with the mix then another with a damp cloth makes a whizz of most household cleaning jobs.

To clean your computer keyboard, spray a little on a soft cloth and wipe down the keyboard. I think it is best when the laptop is shut down, but if you use a very absorbent cloth, you can attack the keys while the computer is on - just open a text file so the key presses don't screw up whatever you're doing.

The tricky keys are the function ones as they make all sorts of weird things happen.

Note that we're so used to seeing sudsy and foamy cleaners that this may not appear to be working but trust me, it does.

Happy cleaning!