3 (Top Secret) Tricks for Cleaning With Vinegar _ Making Lemonade

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3 (Top Secret) Tricks for Cleaning with Vinegar

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my full disclosure .22 Oct by Carrie Higgins · 33 Comments

When the charter school where I used to teach decided to use vinegar– VINEGAR!– to wash the cafeteria floors each day Iwas completely skeptical. After doing a little research it turns out vinegar is a healthy cleaning alternative to products with

3 (Top Secret) Tricks for Cleaning with Vinegar | Making Lemonade http://makinglemonadeblog.com/green-cleaning-with-vinegar-grout-tub-...

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scary ingredients. Plus, it’s cheap and safe for both the environment and the 400+ kids we were in charge of caring for eachday… BUT.

BUT There’s that one little detail, the thing I silently wondered and was scared to ask– wouldn’t the cafeteria smell ofvinegar all day? Because if it did, believe you me, we would hear about it from those 400+ darlings I previouslymentioned. They don’t hold back. On anything. EVER.

Guess what? The smell dissipated within moments of being put on the floor. Our school saved tons of money usingvinegar to clean, and soon I was slinging the stuff all over my home, too. It combines beautifully with other non-toxicproducts to clean your home naturally, safely, and cheaply. What’s not to love?

our kitchen– so fresh and so clean! until the kids get home, at least.


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Over the years I’ve discovered a few cleaning tricks where vinegar is a star. Since I’m always looking for new cleaningsolutions, I decided to try out Heinz Cleaning Vinegar. Here’s three ways you can achieve chemical-free cleaning, a freshhome, and good eco-karma to boot!


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1. Easy Grout Cleaner (a.k.a “The Grout Blaster”)

Our previous kitchen had large white tiles with {very dirty} grout. When we first moved in, we’d spend hours scrubbingwith a chemical grout cleaner. Now that we’ve undergone a kitchen renovation, we only have a small section of the tileleft– and it turns out cleaning it is a breeze because of this trick. Plus, my “helpers” can get involved and I don’t have toworry about harsh chemicals!


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1. Sprinkle baking soda on the grout. Use your finger to make sure it covers all the grout, also wiping away excesspowder. Use a spray bottle filled with vinegar to apply it over the baking soda. Sixth grade science project lovers unite– the{safe} chemical reaction does all the work for you! Let it sit and bubble and scrub itself for a few minutes. But not toolong, or the dirt settles back into the grout.


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2. Using a grout brush, give it a little scrub to get the dirty solution off the grout. Prepare for it to be muddy! Keeping acup of water to quickly rise the brush off helps, but don’t add too much water to the floor– the grittier the solution, the lesselbow grease you’ll have to put into it.

3. Wipe up the muddy solution (I used rags instead of paper towels, to further my green cleaning mojo). Then, clean asusual: quickly run the vacuum to get up excess baking soda, and then go over it with a mop.

nope, this photo is not altered in any way. it really got that clean!


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There you have it, clean grout with half the work, and no expensive special cleaner to buy. I cleaned this section in under30 minutes and it had– and I’m mortified to admit this– over 7 years of build-up. My ‘ah-ha’ moment came when I openedthe door to the bathroom, and saw this line where I stopped cleaning. YUCK! And yet, so cool to see how well the vinegartrick worked.


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2. The Sink Bomb

I call this the sink bomb because it’s just that– the BOMB! Vinegar is amazing when it comes to cleaning sinks. First, Isprkinkle some baking soda in the sink and then spray some vinegar and let it bubble. The baking soda is a low-grit way toscrub the sink, and the vinegar a disinfectant. Wipe off and rinse, your sink is now fresh and clean. Next, if your garbagedisposal is a bit stinky simply add a cup of vinegar and let it sit for about an hour. No more s-t-i-n-k.

BEFORE:


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This one is the real bomb-diggity. If your garbage disposal or drain is clogged, add equal parts baking soda and thenvinegar. Here comes that 6th grade science project again– hello, volcano! A cleaning volcano, that is. Rinse with warmwater. Good as new, with NO strong chemicals to worry about.

AFTER:


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3. Amazing Tub Cleaner

I used to hate cleaning the tub. It bothered me to think that my kids were sitting in a tub of water potentially filled with thereside of whatever I’d just used to clean it, so I’d scrub and rinse forever. Then I discovered this tub cleaner, and it’samazing. Simply put equal parts blue Dawn dish soap and vinegar into a spray bottle. Spray it on the tub, let sit for aboutan hour, and wipe away. Then a quick rinse of water. That’s it– NO scrubbing, and NO dangerous chemical bath for mykids. This stuff works, friends, it’s amazing!

my re-enactment, since I ran out of Dawn right before the photo shoot!


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I wish I had a dramatic before and after for you, but the truth is my tubs were clean from using this method so I don’t havea good ‘before’ shot. If you happen to have a tub that needs to be cleaned and try this out, send me your ‘befores andafters’ and I’ll put them on my Facebook page. Trust me, you’ll have sparkling clean tubs soon!

Natural cleaning isn’t just great for the environment. It’s also great for your budget. As you can see, instead of buyingspecific products for each cleaning job, vinegar and one or two other non-toxic ingredients does it all. For waaaaayyyyyless. And won’t clutter up every shelf, sink, and cabinet either. As you can see from my Google+ album of my Walmartshopping trip, this is one product that will always be in my cart. After all, it cost only $2.98 for that huge jug– an arsenal ofhealthy cleaning power for under $3.00 a gallon.


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just an FYI: you’ll find it in the vinegar aisle, not the cleaning aisle

I was curious so I looked it up: Heinz Cleaning Vinegar has 7% acidity, as opposed to the original 6% acidity. That littlenumber boosts the cleaning power by 20%. Yup, #HeinzVinegar is pretty perfect all around, isn’t it?!

The list of vinegar’s amazing uses goes on and on, and I’m discovering new ones every day. What’syour favorite way to clean with vinegar? Any tricks to share? What other green cleaning products do

you use to clean your home? While we’re at it– what’s your least favorite thing to clean?

I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study forCollective Bias™ and HEINZ #CBias

#SocialFabric


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Meet Carrie Higgins

Dreamer, thinker, + lemon squeezer; you'll usually find me clutching a mug of coffee, glue gun, fandeck ofpaint colors, and a child at any given time. This mom of two (and wife to one) loves to share freshly squeezedideas for home and family. Join the adventure as we learn most lemons can indeed become lemonade-- withgenerous amounts of sweetness, perspective, and love.

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Filed Under: #Heinzvinegar, eco-friendly, green cleaning, natural cleaning, Walmart ·previous post: Free Little Chefs E-book and Giveaway!next post: Everyday Fun with Your Little Chefs

Comments


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RG :) says:October 22, 2012 at 1:09 pm

That grout shot is amazing! I’m glad we don’t have tile anymore, but if we did, I would be using this trick. Even withspecial grout cleaner, it takes a ton of elbow grease to get the floor that clean — if at all!

Reply

1.

Rebecca E. Parsons/Cre8Tiva says:October 22, 2012 at 10:32 pm

you rocked this one!!! love the story and the images to illustrate it!!! Thank you for being awesomesauce!!!

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2.

NN says:October 22, 2012 at 11:43 pm

Great information! Pinned it! And, your kitchen is BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!

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3.

Janel from NellieBellie says:October 24, 2012 at 1:51 pm

Love the tips!! I too use the dawn vinegar bathtub stuff…love it!!I am soo doing the grout cleaner. But, I might not want to know how bad it is. I just might not want to.

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4.

Jennifer Carroll says:October 24, 2012 at 3:10 pm

OMG?!! I too have been really, really skeptical about the “real” cleaning power of vinegar – and a bit worried aboutthe smell too! but I have to say you’ve intrigued me enough that I’m TOTALLY going to try this! I hate using theharsh cleaners but felt I had to, to really get everything clean. This is exciting!! Gotta go buy vinegar right now!!

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5.

Taryn @ Design, Dining + Diapers says:October 25, 2012 at 3:25 am

Great tips! I need to try some of these

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6.

Heather SettingforFour says:October 28, 2012 at 3:12 pm

Our Mom’s knew what was best – love this ‘old school’ cleaning technique!! I am using this on my grout ASAP!!Thanks for sharing these terrific tips!

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Casey says:December 29, 2012 at 12:35 am

I’ll have to try the grout one. Our bathroom floor is a little worse for wear..

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Katherine says:December 30, 2012 at 11:23 am

I love finding new ways to clean with vinegar! Every few weeks or so I also use it to clean out my coffee maker. I put1 part of vinegar to 1 part of water and run my coffee maker as usual. When my coffee maker is clean, I pour thesolution into my tea kettle and boil the water to clean my kettle as well. Then I make a paste of baking soda, pour itdown my kitchen sink and follow it up with the boiling vinegar. No more nasty smell!The same ratio can be used to spray post-shower to prevent mildew build-up. I also use it to clean my mirrors andwindows (wiping with newspapers, of course).

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Carrie says:December 31, 2012 at 4:37 pm

I SO need to do that to my coffee maker. It’s amazing all the ways you can use vinegar, and I love how you’vefound a way to use it several times before disposing of it– especially since you are cleaning while you disposeof it!

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9.

Lorenda says:May 23, 2013 at 12:45 am

Straight vinegar on weeds poking up through concrete, bricks, any place that you aren’t growing anything other thanweeds, is amazing! Over the next 24 to 48 hours, it will kill the weeds but not your wallet or the environment! Win,win! (BONUS! This is a “chore” the little ones LOVE to help with!)

Reply

Carrie says:May 28, 2013 at 11:16 pm

That’s a great tip, Lorenda! I’m trying it this weekend– my kids would love to help with that, actually!

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10.

Jeri Niksich says:June 23, 2013 at 10:15 pm

I have a bottle of grout cleaner in my garage for day when I finally get down to it. After seeing your post I (literally)immediately went to kitchen grabbed the baking soda, spray bottle & vinegar then went to husbands man cave &informed him we were going to do an experiment……THANK YOU!!! The soda & vinegar won HANDS DOWN!!!

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Now I need to do the rest of the room & foyer….that will be the hardest part of the job making myself do it but I’msure not dreading it like I was before this is a BIG SCORE for me.

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Carrie says:June 23, 2013 at 11:25 pm

YAY! That’s awesome to hear! It’s crazy how well such simple ingredients can work, and they’re safe for yourhome. I still have a section to clean still, perhaps we can motivate each other to do it!

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jeanne says:November 13, 2013 at 11:33 am

can the solution be used to clean kitchen cabinets? I have cabinets that are about 50 years old . The house was built in1948. I want to renovate not ge rid of them HELP ME clean them!!!t

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Carrie Higgins says:November 13, 2013 at 1:29 pm

We painted our cabinets too instead of replacing them, saves SOOOO much money! I’d give it a try on aninconspicuous area and see how it goes. Good luck!

Reply

12.

Danielle says:December 29, 2013 at 9:01 pm

Does it need to be Dawn or can you use any dish soap?

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Carrie Higgins says:January 26, 2014 at 10:35 pm

That is a great question, and I’m so sorry it took me so long to see it! I’ve only used Dawn, but I bet anothername-brand detergent would work too. If you give it a try, let me know!

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Marian Pena says:March 20, 2014 at 12:56 am

There is something about Dawn in particular that works well for cleaning other than dishes. When I’ve seentips with cleaning that use Dawn, they are specific to that brand, so I’d say that if they chose Dawn, that itreally means to use Dawn and not other types of dish washing soap. Not that you couldn’t try using otherbrands, but it’s like Avon’s Oil of Olay and keeping mosquitoes away, there is just something about Oil of Olaythat works where other oils of that purpose do not work.

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Wendy Clarke says:May 14, 2014 at 2:58 pm

This works like a charm for porcelain and ceramic tile. For Marble, Limestone, Travertine or Granite tiles the vinegarwill damage the edges of all your tiles.

Reply

Carrie Higgins says:May 14, 2014 at 5:17 pm

True, I imagine it’d bubble if put on limestone!!

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14.

Home Cleaning says:May 27, 2014 at 5:01 pm

Great post! Been reading a lot about cleaning with vinegar. Thanks for the info here!

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15.

Jo Orta says:May 30, 2014 at 3:10 pm

You mentioned that Heinz cleaning vinegar is 8% strength as opposed to the regular 6% of ‘regular’. I found thissurprising because I’ve been buying 9% strength for years. Our local grocery store in San Antonio and much of SouthTexas is called HEB (we say it by the letters, not rhyming with ‘web’) and their store brand comes in regular and 9%.I used it on my coffee pot (before I started using filtered water – our water is very hard) and it’s always workedbeautifully. Why wouldn’t a “cleaning” vinegar be at least 9% since it is readily available, I wonder?

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16.

Ashley says:June 2, 2014 at 3:03 pm

Would this work on the walls of my shower grout? Im thinking the baking soda would fall right off..but there has gotto be a way!

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Carrie Higgins says:June 2, 2014 at 3:46 pm

I think it would… maybe try mixing it together into a thick paste and then scrub it. Let me know if it works!

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17.

Jill Pastula says:June 9, 2014 at 7:22 am

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Good tips. I’d love to know the shade of gray on your kitchen walls,

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Debi rosin says:September 25, 2014 at 9:45 pm

I tried baking soda on the chrome bumpers, mirrors and running boards on my pick em up truck. It does the samething to chrome fixtures in the bathroom and kitchen. as a matter of fact I recently did a face lift in my bathroom. Theshower fixtures were so old I couldn’t find one to replace it. I had no choice but to keep the old one. I rubbed somebaking soda on the old one and it looks as good as the day it was new. Love vinegar AND baking soda.

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19.

Jen @ Fresh From The... says:October 9, 2014 at 7:43 pm

I had a mold-growing-on-the-wall problem (gross, I know) and tried various different things, from bleach to vinegar.And vinegar wins hands down. It kills the mold, AND keeps it from coming back. If anyone ever has this problem, Iwould definitely recommend using vinegar. First use it to help clean off the wall, then spray the wall and let it dry onthere to keep it from growing back.

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20.

Mrs. Seifert says:October 28, 2014 at 10:41 pm

My mother was an avid user of vinegar for everything.She kept a small glass of 1/4 cup vinegar with 1 cup water flavored with honey on the cupboard all the time. Shewould just sip on it during the day. She drank it for her arthritis.She used it to clean under her arms to kill odor.If we had athletics feet, she would warm water, vinegar and salt on the stove and we would soak our feet in it for 20to 30 minutes every night for a week. It would usually kill the fungus.When we were coming down with a cold, we would soak our feet in the warm water, vinegar & salt at nite.Amazing stuff. And she was doing this back in the 60′s.

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21.

Steve says:November 6, 2014 at 5:44 pm

we keep vinegar in a spray bottle and use it full strength when one of the dogs pees on the carpet. Keeps it fromstaining and removes the odor too.

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Trackbacks

My Secret Weapon | Making Lemonade says:March 30, 2013 at 8:13 pm

[...] My friend “baking soda” is missing from the photo. I hope she’ll forgive me. I use her for everything fromcleaning grout to scrubbing my sinks. [...]

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Reply8 AMAZING Uses for a Steam Cleaner | Making Lemonade says:October 21, 2013 at 8:31 am

[...] 5 seconds and have any stains magically disappear. Which is fine, because it turns out I have the perfect secrettrick for cleaning grout that takes very little time and effort. But the floors around the grout cleaned like a dreamwhen I used the Large Cleaning Brush. [...]

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3 All Natural Laundry Tips! {Eco-Friendly Laundry} | Making Lemonade says:January 26, 2014 at 10:28 pm

[...] by using mostly natural items like baking soda and vinegar. You saw the dramatic results with my all-naturalSUPER CHEAP grout and tub cleaner– why would I go back to paying top dollar for toxic chemicals when naturalsolutions work so [...]

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Welcome! I'm Carrie, and am so glad you're here. After my daughter's traumatic birth turned ourworld upside down, we knew we had a choice-- make lemonade, or live with sour lemons. Needless to say, we madelemonade and haven't looked back since (though some days we may add a dash of tequila). I'm a dreamer, thinker,sometimes do-er... keeping sane by serving up freshly squeezed ideas for home and family. Pull up a chair and stayawhile![Read More …]


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3 (Top Secret) Tricks for Cleaning With Vinegar _ Making Lemonade

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