Herbal All-Natural Home Cleaning Series - Part 1- Floor Cleaning Solution

"She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff."
~ Proverbs 31:19 ~



Have you ever wondered what your cleaning products have in them? Many of them have sulphates, phosphates, and other harmful chemicals in them. Why would you want to use them? I have started making and selling my own castile soap in different forms including dish soap, hand soap, shampoos, etc. (you can go here to see what I make).

 For years our Grandmothers and great-Grandmothers made their own soap out of lye and used natural items from the pantry to clean with, like vinegar, lemon juice, baking soda, etc. Over the next few weeks I am going to try to post a recipe for all natural cleaners that will cost you pennies to make and work just as good or better than the store bought.

 Many of these recipes will have essential oils in them, it's not just for making the product smell good like store bought product, although that's a great perk, but instead to help with the cleaning process. This too will cost you pennies in the long run because most of the recipes only contain a few drops. I recommend ordering these essential oils from Beeyoutiful.com they are 100% pure, I have been ordering from them for over a year now and they are very affordable (shipping is only $6 flat rate, a very good deal indeed).

 Now this recipe that I am posting is a bulk recipe, it makes 1.5 gallons of floor cleaning solution, so you can divide the ingredients by 1.5 to get a one gallon recipe. I doubles this recipe and made three gallons. But. I personally would not make as much as I did, the only reason I did make as much is because of what happened in this post. But, if you do you could go to walmart and buy a 3 gallon bucket in the paint section (it includes a top too).

3 gallon bucket

 I am also going to include the cost of each product and add it up so by the end of the recipe you will see how much it costs to make the product. So here we go:

All-Natural Floor Cleaning Solution

33 C. Hot Water *- .15
3 1/3 C. Lemon Juice $1.59
2 C. Ultra- Concentrated Castile Dish Soap** - Unscented (found here) - $22.00
55 drops Lemon Essential Oil - .55
55 drops of Tea Tree Oil***  .82
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                                    Total: $25.11
Makes 192 ounces / by 25.11 = .13 oz

Now, I calculated the cost of pine-sol at walmart and here is the what I came up with:
Original - .07 oz

So in all reality this product is the a little less expensive but the ingredients are not all natural, I have heard that the ingredients used to be almost exactly the same, but the ingredients have changed as you can see if you go to the pine-sol/clorox website under the ingredients list. I am not posting the link because I do not want to get in trouble with the company.

So, you see, you are making your own green, all natural product at home, no harmful chemicals for the exact same price you would pay for it at the store, what do you have to lose. Go ahead make it, you'll love the results and you'll enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that it's better for you and your children.

ENJOY BEING ALL NATURAL!

* Hot water must be used so that it will mix with the soap and not sud up the soap...if you put cold water in there all you will get is a bunch of suds.

** If you decide to use a diluted Castile soap such as Dr. Bronners, please make sure you account for this in calculating your recipe, usually these are diluted with 50-75% water so either add more soap or use less water

*** Can be substituted for Cedarwood or Pine Essential Oil (Pine essential oil was used in the original pine-sol)