DIY All-Purpose Cleaner

This DIY all-purpose cleaner is made with natural ingredients, and it’s much more cost-effective than buying a new bottle of cleaner every week. It helps you reduce waste and keep your home clean with minimal effort!

As much as I love my DIY lavender infused vinegar cleaner, I’ve been playing around with different recipes for a couple of months now, looking for the truly perfect all-purpose cleaner recipe.

Something that I really can use on everything without fear, and something that I have a little more control over in terms of scent and ingredients. A recipe without vinegar!

I’m all for going natural when it comes to cleaning, but I’ll be the first to admit that I also keep a bottle of Lysol under my sink, and I use it every couple of weeks or so. In between my big scrub-downs, I now use this recipe, and my vinegar cleaner as well!

It feels so good using natural products for everyday spills, and it saves us a ton of money! Buying the ingredients for this homemade all-purpose spray in bulk is the most cost-effective way, but even if you don’t do that, you’ll still save a ton of money!

Why Switch To Homemade Natural Cleaners?

Cleaning products aren’t required by the FDA to list all of their ingredients, since their products aren’t meant to be ingested. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires them to list any ingredients that could potentially be harmful, but the rest are kept secret. Presumably this is to keep competitors from stealing their formulas, but it’s still cause for some concern.

Many homemade cleaner recipes call for white vinegar and baking soda, two of the main products we know are great for cleaning. Articles will claim that they react when combined, creating this super awesome cleaner. But after some digging, I found that this is not the case.

Both of these products on their own are great! I use vinegar all around our house, and baking soda is perfect for scrubbing stains in your bathroom. But when combined, the end result is essentially a salt water solution.

There are recipes that only call for vinegar, water and essential oil, and those are better than the common baking soda and vinegar concoctions. However, vinegar is acidic, so you can’t use it on everything. Plus, no amount of essential oil is going to completely mask the strong vinegar smell. So I turned to recipes that center around Castile soap!

Related: DIY Liquid Hand Soap (Rosemary Grapefruit)

Some essential oils are great for cleaning and disinfecting, and at the top of that list is lemon! Which is convenient, considering lemon is a delicious, naturally-clean smelling oil. Lemon cleaning spray has always been my favorite, so making the switch to homemade lemon cleaner was a breeze.

This spray does separate after it sits for a while, but a quick swish combines the ingredients just fine. Let’s get into the recipe, shall we?

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DIY All-Purpose Cleaner (Without Vinegar)

Ingredients for Homemade All-Purpose Cleaner

• 3 tbsp baking soda (I bought some in bulk HERE earlier this year)
• 1 tbsp castile soap
• 10 drops lemon essential oil
• 10 drops melaleuca essential oil
• Distilled water
• Spray bottle (Ideally, you want to use amber glass bottles when working with essential oils. However, I know I’ll use this entire bottle within a week or two, so I bought some clear glass spray bottles. Plus, it’s just nicer to take pictures of, honestly.)

How To Make Natural Homemade All-Purpose Cleaner

1. Add Baking Soda and Water to Spray Bottle

Add the baking soda, then fill the spray bottle almost to the top with distilled water.

2. Put the Lid on and Shake Vigorously 

Shake it up now, because once you add the castile soap, shaking the mixture will make it sudsy.

3. Add Castile Soap, Lemon Essential Oil, and Melaleuca Essential Oil

Add the remaining ingredients. Sometimes I skip the melaleuca oil and stick to lemon essential oil only, and it’s still amazing! Feel free to swap them out and try different oils.

4. Put The Lid Back on and Swish Gently To Combine Ingredients

Gently swish the bottle around to combine the ingredients, and you’re done!

Which cleaning products do you like to make yourself? Have you made your own all-purpose cleaner before? Let me know in the comments below!

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