http://www.care2.com/greenliving/3-ways-to-clean-your-windows-with-vinegar.html
3 Ways to Clean Your Windows with Vinegar
By Melissa Breyer, Senior Editor, Healthy & Green Living
Finally the days are becoming clear and sparkling, although I’d be hard-pressed to tell if I were to rely upon the blurry view from my winter-grimed windows. How can windows get so speckled and what am I going to do about it? Time to break out the vinegar.
One of the earliest DIY housecleaning formulas that the media grabbed on to way back when was cleaning your windows with vinegar. Remember that? It was a good idea, the only problem was, according to Annie B. Bond, that years of using commercial products left a residue on windows that wasn’t adequately handled by the vinegar. The result? Streaky windows and a lackluster reputation for homemade housecleaning formulas. So if you are looking at the world through dirty windows and want an inexpensive and natural way to clean them, you might need a tweak on the simple vinegar formula. Try one of these methods depending on your situation.
First time with vinegar
If you are going to clean your windows with vinegar for the first time, you need to add an extra ingredient to help combat the residue left over from commercial products. Here is Annie’s formula:
2 cups of water
1/4 cup white distilled vinegar
1/2 teaspoon of liquid dish soap or detergent
Combine in a labeled spray bottle, spray and wipe.
Normal dirt
Once you have removed any waxy residue with the liquid soap formula, you can begin using a diluted white vinegar solution for normal dirt.
1 cup white distilled vinegar
1 cup water
Combine in a labeled spray bottle, spray and wipe.
Very dirty
If you have extra dirty windows, or windows with dried paint or hard-water mineral spots, try warming up full-strength white distilled vinegar and applying it directly to the windows.
What to wipe with?
As for what to wipe with, what’s best? To avoid streaks it’s important to dry the window as quickly as possible once you have cleaned it. Many normal cleaning cloths can leave a small flurry of lint, not ideal. Paper towels are lint-free, but are too wasteful. Some people swear by newspaper–it is lint-free, and the texture of the crumpled paper can work well on grime. But if you don’t like the feeling of newspaper ink on your hands, or if the ink smudges your white window frames or sills, you’ll need something else. Squeegees are good because you only need one towel to wipe and they really do conquer streaks once you have the technique mastered. I find that microfiber cleaning cloths work well on just about everything, including windows. What do you use? We’d like to hear, leave a comment!
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87 comments
add your comment »ah, NOW i understand why my windows were always streaky! well, ijust made a bottle of the first recipe and tried it in my grimy kitchen sink. what a surprise! a little bit of liquid soap really made a difference! i am going to attack my windows tomorrow ;-)
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Make your own vinegar? Come on, I have better things to do with my wine! ;D
My plastic bottles go to recycling (as I think do most of those belonging to green vindow vipers), and get turned into all sorts of useful things like Polarfleece jackets and reusable shopping bags. The ways of greenness are many and various.
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Teresa Johnson makes a great point about all the plastic bottles in landfills. There is a good book Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It by Elizabeth Royte, which notes the millions of barrels of oil that go into making the plactic bottles that most people do not recycle, but go into landfills.
~Beth~
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better to refill plastic bottles from your kitchen. no landfills or energy to recycle. now thats really green!!!
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think of all those plastic bottles going into landfills or using energy to be recycled. best to make your own at home and refill the bottles from your kitchen. thats really green!!
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Also clean windows early morning or after the sun has gone down since this helps prevent streaking. Cool glass=clean glass.
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this works really well and with newpaper to rub down with.
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this works really well and with newspaper to rub with.
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This trick i learned from my mum 30 years ago! and it works!
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How much are you paying for a 32 ounce of window cleaner? I would like to share my
recipe for WINDOW CLEANER.
2 CUPS ALCOHOL-2 CUPS WATER -4 TABLESPOONS
WHITE VINEGAR AND 4-TABLESPOONS AMMONIA:
Makes a 32 ounce Spray bottle. Micro cloth
and in addition: Kills ants, great for
cleaning bathrooms and vinyl windwo seals..
Anne Icenhour
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