Having a clean house is wonderful, but doing the actual cleaning isn’t always super exciting. Change things up a bit with some offbeat and amazing cleaning products you might have laying around the house already. This is double the fun if you’re into keeping your cleaning products on the natural side. Plus, they’re cheap.
Walnuts
These bad boys aren’t only an omega-3 powerhouse that do wonders for your bod, they fix scratches on wood furniture too. Seriously! If you nicked your coffee table with your shoes one too many times, just rub a walnut in a circular motion across the scratch, let it soak, and do a little gentle polishing over the top. Magic.
Cream of Tartar
What cream of tartar even is would be found in an entirely different article, but it tends to live in the spice rack of the kitchen. What we know for certain is that it is considered the superman of undercover cleaning agents and that you should get some quick if you don’t already own it. It can be mixed with things like vinegar to stand in as bleach, or with hydrogen peroxide to clean pots and pans. With plain old water it’s good enough to fix scratches on plates, ruin mildew’s life, and clean soot off your fireplace. If that’s not impressive enough for you, consider that you can add it when cooking vegetables to preserve their color, but it also works as an ant repellent when sprinkled in their path. Wild.
Lemon Juice
Lemon juice is a natural antibacterial agent that remains safe for you and whatever you’re cleaning. Soak a sponge in this master cleaning nectar and squeeze it out onto the tile grout after you take a shower. The lemon juice will help prevent mildew growth and it will keep the tiles looking bright as the sun. If you microwave some fresh lemon juice in a bowl for a few minutes, it will knock out smells of past pizza salvations, and it will also loosen up the hardened cheese and tomato sauce stuck to the walls for an easy clean up. Same goes for those Tupperware containers you keep leaving in the car overnight and then consequently throw out instead of facing. Just soak ‘em in lemon juice overnight and they’ll be good as new.
Paper Products
Newspaper is by far the best thing to use when cleaning windows and mirrors because it doesn’t fall apart (unless it’s soaked) and…here’s the key…it doesn’t leave any streaks. Wax paper on the other hand, prevents water spots from forming if you rub it onto a sink or other stainless steel surface. Sparkly.
Olive Oil
Besides making all food delicious, olive oil mixed with salt makes an effective pot scrubbing solution. It also gets paint off of your hands, and works to fix scratched leather is you gently rub some on. When you’re done sprucing up your place you can even stick a wick in a jar filled with olive oil and light up your brand new all natural olive oil candle. Plus everything looks extra clean by candlelight.
