DIY Homemade Cleaners + Free Printable Labels

Tell all ya friends and neighbors!

4 easy DIY homemade cleaners recipes, including a DIY glass cleaner, natural disinfectant, all-purpose cleaner and a cleaner with bleach. Also free printable labels for your homemade cleaners!

In my defense, I had been working on this little homemade cleaners project for a while. As part of our cleaning closet that we are just about finished making over, I wanted to give my hand at some DIY homemade cleaning recipes to see if I could make some that were effective.

But now with all of this crisis madness we are dealing with, coupled with the fact that I’m now a pre-K homeschool teacher, I figured now is as good as of a time as ever to try my hand at some chemistry experiments. Feeling like a mad scientist over here.

For a couple of the cleaners, I consulted the CDC website because I didn’t want to make any cleaners that claimed to be a natural disinfectant or some type of antiviral spray without it actually being effective.

After a lot of tinkering, I feel like I got a pretty decent mix of DIY homemade cleaners that are so cheap to make, super easy, and – the most important part – they actually work!

DIY Homemade Cleaners:

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Supplies:

• Glass amber bottles
• Avery sticker paper
• Measuring cups
• White vinegar
• 70% alcohol (or you can use vodka which, tbh, you may have on hand if you’re a part of this quarantine at the moment)
• Laundry detergent

Steps:

We bought these amber glass spray bottles from Amazon when we were making over our laundry room and they’ve worked out great for us, so I just ordered 4 more.

I had this Avery sticker paper on hand from back in my glory days when I thought I was going to throw parties for a living. Jokes on me – I hate parties and need to be braless by no later than 7 PM daily unless given at least a month’s notice.

I whipped up some labels super quick with the homemade cleaner recipes on them. I had in my mind that I wanted these to be clean, minimal and almost apothecary-ish. You know, something that David Rose would sell in his store. Where my Schitt’s Creek fans at?!

Oh, and PS, if you want these labels for yourself, I’d love to share! Just tell me where to send them!

Once I printed out the labels, I used my rotary cutter and mat to cut mine out, but scissors will be just fine. I just used this because it was what I had.

Once I had all my bottle labels, now’s time for testing out all the chemistry I’d been working on! For reference, here’s all the homemade cleaner recipes all in one place:

All Purpose Cleaner

• Fill 1/2 of the bottle with white vinegar
• Fill 1/2 of the bottle with water
• 2 tbsp of 70% alcohol
• 10-30 drops of essential oils

Bleach Cleaner

• 2 tsp bleach
• Fill the rest of of the bottle with about 2 cups of water

Natural Disinfectant Cleaner

*Recipe in accordance with the CDC website

• 1 1/2 cups 70% alcohol
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 30 drops essential oils

You could actually use this recipe to make homemade disinfectant wipes too with paper towels.

Natural Glass Cleaner

• 1oz ammonia
• 4oz 70% alcohol
• 1tsp laundry detergent
• Fill rest of the bottle with water

Making your own cleaning products is so incredibly easy and SO much cheaper than buying them. Plus you know exactly what’s going into your cleaners, into your home, and in contact with you and your family.

But the real kicker is-

Do homemade cleaners actually work?

I did search for what ingredients I needed – Alcohol is hard to come by these days since everyone is trying to disinfect surfaces in their homes and make their own hand sanitizers. So I wanted those that didn’t require too much alcohol, but had enough that it made it effective.

I figured I’d try my hand at some window cleaning with my homemade glass cleaner because it seemed the easiest. Windows and glass are what I find myself cleaning the most often anyway because tiny hands get all over them.

Don’t judge me but here’s one of the windows in our living room. Let’s see how my little baby glass cleaner recipe works. I have to admit having the laundry detergent (or dish soap of any kind) weirded me out because I thought it would have bubbles or something weird.

You can use a microfiber cloth to clean the windows if you want, but call me ungreen because I love using paper towels. So, moment of truth, did this leave streaks?

You guys! NO! Totally streak free! I’m so stoked because this DIY glass cleaner actually works! Don’t mind the black spot – that was a bug on the outside. But CHEMISTRY! I’m a homeschool teacher now! When do I get my teacher appreciation gift?

The only bad thing is now this means that I’m going to have to start cleaning windows and mirrors more often I guess.

Don’t forget, you can get your own printable labels just by throwing me your email address so I know where to send them!