Ladies,
I am sooo excited for this post, #ThisIs30. But seriously, over the past year I have begun a love affair with Dr. Bronner’s castile soap, white vinegar (sister post to this one coming soon) and essential oils (also coming soon). I have become obsessed with DIY-ing my own products for my family and our home. I’ve been doing this for a few reasons: 1) Budget, 2) Less clutter/ living minimally 3) Less toxins.
The amount of cleaner bottles I used to have under my sink was ridiculous – glass cleaner, all purpose cleaner, toilet cleaner, bathtub cleaner, cleaner with bleach, eco cleaner, etc etc. All those products took up a ton of room and also were expensive. When we moved into the trailer I needed to save money and also I have one kitchen cabinet that has to fit pots, pans, mixing bowls and appliances and I didn’t have the room for several cleaner bottles. SO – over the past 9 months I’ve been experimenting with different DIY recipes and today I wanted to share with you what actually works.
As I briefly mentioned above, I’m going to split this up into three posts – this one will be on what I use Dr. Bronner’s for and I’m going to do two additional posts, one on what to use vinegar for and the other on essential oils. To combine them would be nothing short of a novel so hoping this is more digestible for everyone. I have these glass spray bottles for all my DIY cleaning products.
- Body wash for the whole family – I use the lavender one. I use it for face wash for myself as well. I also use this as Evelyn’s body wash. She has extremely sensitive skin and we still have to use Cereve lotion on the daily to keep her eczema at bay and this wash is calming for her night time routine and does not aggravate her skin.
- Shaving “cream” – I also use the lavender soap for shaving cream for my legs and it works great.
- DIY Hand Foaming Soap – Hand soap can get expensive. I used an empty hand foaming soap dispenser and DIYd my own. This is the recipe I used.
- DIY Floor Cleaner – We have the target knock off of the Bona mop. I DIY my own floor cleaner with water, Dr. Broner’s Sal Suds and 8 drops essential oil – I use Doterra’s On Guard.
- DIY All Purpose Cleaner – Ok, this is where I put out a huge PSA that you don’t mix castile soap and vinegar together. They cancel each other out. So if like me, you searched on pintrest for a DIY all purpose cleaner you probably found a lot of recipes that use both. Which I get because they are both effective “green” cleaning agents However, in this case it is too much of a good thing. And unfortunately a lot of people don’t realize this so I see recipes all the time combine both and it’s just like… facepalm. Luckily, I gotchu. The recommendation is you can use your DIY soap cleaner first, wipe it and then to get an extra shiny no “grime” feel, use your DIY vinegar cleaner over the surface next. I use a mixture of Dr. Bronner’s Sal Suds, water and Doterra’s On Guard essential oil for my DIY cleaner.
- DIY Makeup Brush Cleaner – I’m so bad about doing this on the regular and it’s always so gross the amount of makeup that comes off my brushes. You probably don’t wash yours on the reg either, so don’t spend money and waste space in your bathroom cabinet on a cleaner you’ll use maybe two times in a year.
Bonus, here are some DIY uses that I want to try using but haven’t yet:
Laundry Detergent – I’m seeing a lot of posts that swear by using Dr. Bronner’s soap for laundry detergent. We have a small portable washer that we try to use over paying at the laundromat which adds up quickly. Our portable washer only needs about a tablespoon of detergent per load. So lugging around a huge jug of detergent doesn’t make sense. I’m definitely interested in trying Dr. Bronner’s instead once we’ve used up the detergent I’ve already bought.
DIY Hand Wipes – With a toddler, I use hand wipes constantly. But I also want to make sure I’m using non-toxic products and those can add up. I’ve seen a lot of mom’s DIY their own wipes by cutting a roll of paper towels in half, making a solution and pouring it over the paper towels in a container. A lot will recycle an old wipes plastic container, you could also use a cheap tupperware container. I’m hoping to try this out soon using Dr. Bronner’s and essential oils. I know moms also do this for DIY baby wipes as well. I found a recipe here that I want to try for DIY hand wipes & DIY cleaning wipes.
Do you have a favorite DIY cleaner, household item that I didn’t mention? Let me know if the comments below as I’m always looking for new affordable DIY hacks!
Happy spring cleaning mommas.
Xo,
M