Natural Household Cleaners You Never Knew About

If you are looking into using natural household cleaners you may discover many that you never knew about. Some are used over and over again and others are very obscure.

Cleaning an Iron

If you iron or press your clothes, especially if you use starch or sizing, you will see a buildup on the bottom of your iron. This can also scorch onto your iron and cause dark stains. This will cause your iron to drag over the clothes instead of gliding and won't give you a smooth ironed surface. The natural way to clean this is to place some brown paper on your ironing board, and sprinkle liberally with salt. Turn your iron on to low and rub it back and forth over the salt. You may need to add salt until its scoured clean.

Polishing Copper

If you have a copper pot that has darkened or verdigrised it can be a frustrating and messy job to clean it. Use lemon juice and salt to scour it! Cut a lemon in half, dip it into salt and use that to scour the pan. You can also dip a sponge into lemon juice and then into salt and use it in the same way.

Drain Cleaner

If your drain is running very slowly or not at all there is a fix that is as close as your kitchen cupboard. Pour about a cup of baking soda into the drain. Then pour in about half a cup of white vinegar. This will cause a foaming action that will clean a lot of grease and debris from the drain. Follow this with a treatment with a rubber plumbers helper and your drain will be cleared. If you use this technique about every two weeks in your drains, you will avoid clogs.

Laundry Detergent

You can make your own natural laundry detergent with just a few inexpensive ingredients and save a lot of money and avoid plastic jugs and harsh chemicals. Grate a bar of pure soap with a cheese grater and dump it into 8 cups of boiling water. Stir til dissolved. Then add 1 cup of laundry soda and one cup of borax. These can be found on your detergent aisle at the supermarket. Stir until blended. Let this simmer for a while until it starts to thicken. Turn off the heat and allow it to cool over night. Pour into a crock or glass jar. Use one cup per laundry load. You may find you won't need to use fabric softener at all with this blend. If the mixture separates in the jar, just stir to mix it. Try various pure soaps available at any health food store if you like a nice scent.

Air Fresheners

There are many ways to freshen the air in your home. Try cutting a lemon in half and let it sit in a bowl. After a day or so, grind it in your garbage disposal to freshen it. You can also use an orange or a grapefruit.

Another good air freshener is to grind coffee and let it sit in the open air. Also, put a drop or two of vanilla flavoring on a cotton ball and let it sit. All of these also work well to deodorize a refrigerator.