13 Natural Ingredients to Clean Almost Anything!

Everyone wants a clean home, but clean these days means more than no dirt and grime. It also means no potentially toxic chemicals. Clean up your cleaning act by ditching toxic commercial cleansers in favor of homemade versions. With this list of grocery store basics, you can clean just about anything.

Shopping List

With these easy-to-find items, you can clean just about anything.

■ Baking Soda: scrubbing, whitening
Use baking soda to eliminate odors and to whiten. A paste of baking soda and water can help whiten sinks and bathtubs, and a box of baking soda in the fridge, bathroom or cupboard helps absorb odors.

■ Beeswax: polishing wood
You can forgo oily wood polish in favor of all-natural beeswax. Find a local beekeeper, and you support your local economy in the process!

■ Cornstarch and Club Soda (or any unflavored fizzy water): lifting stains
For a quick treatment to stains on carpets or drapes, cover the stain with absorbent cornstarch. Let it sit for about 20 minutes, then pour fizzy club soda to lift the stain. Also try cornstarch on oil dripped on clothing.

■ Hydrogen Peroxide: disinfecting, removing stains
Hydrogen peroxide is a powerful disinfectant. To kill mildew, combine baking soda and hydrogen peroxide to create a paste, put on mildew and allow to sit for a few minutes before wiping away.

lemon

■ Lemon: removing stains and odors
Lemons are a great all-purpose odor remover in the kitchen. Run half a lemon over a dirty cutting board to help remove odors such as onion or fish. Put half a lemon (chop it up if your disposal has trouble with large objects) down the disposal and grind it to remove odors from the kitchen sink. Lemon juice adds cleaning power to all-purpose solutions.

Next: More great natural cleaning ingredients

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Jessica Kellner

Jessica Kellner is the editor of Natural Home & Garden magazine, a national sustainable home and lifestyle magazine. She is dedicated to helping readers create more sustainable, delightful homes that are in tune with the natural world. She is also the author of Housing Reclaimed: Sustainable Homes for Next to Nothing, published by New Society Publishers in autumn of 2011. Email her at jkellner@naturalhomeandgarden.com.