Cleaning shouldn’t make us sick! If anything, it should help us stay healthy. If you seek non-toxic cleaning products that clean effectively, stay within your budget, and are time-efficient to make, check out these easy low-tox and non-toxic recipes and recommendations!
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I got serious about cleaning products as a young mom. While I had been buying whatever was on sale or smelled good at the store, on some level I realized these things didn’t seem great for our health. In fact, before kids I would clean with the windows open, even on our coldest Chicago winter days.
When my children were quite small, I read an article that cited some problems with conventional cleaning products. One was asthma-related. My son had asthma and allergy, so this was of concern.
Let’s face it– there is a extra cleaning to do with tiny people around. They make messes. Kids get sick, or my kids did, anyway. Little ones also “help” clean, and this is a wonderful thing. Except if that cleaner is hurting them.
Another takeaway from that article was that the highest breast cancer rates in some study or other were among stay-at-home moms and cleaning ladies. That doesn’t prove the cleaning supplies are to blame, but it made me think twice. I can’t find the article now, but it may have related to this.
What to do???
All this was enough to convince me to use slightly-more-expensive products from the store that were supposed to be “green” or “eco-friendly” or “non-toxic”. Over time, I realized that these weren’t necessarily much better.
“Greenwashing” was a thing, even though I hadn’t yet heard the term. Basically, some supposedly better-for-us products aren’t much different from their cheaper, more conventional shelf-mates. Those labeling terms, or the brown or green packaging, perhaps with pretty leaves, can be deceptive.
There are, it is true, really excellent, harmless products on the market. Most of them cost a lot more, though the price is worth it in preserved health. If you have the budget!
What if your budget is stretched thin, though? Like so many others, I went down a winding road of DIY cleaning recipes. Some worked, others didn’t. A few were unpopular with the rest of the household (hello, vinegar!). A couple weren’t even all that harmless, or were expensive to make. Others were too involved, like the toilet cleaner tablets I tried a couple times.
Today I am sharing with you what is working. I have used most of these non-toxic cleaning products for years and make the recipes again and again. Our house is about as clean as any, and these recipes have not damaged our stuff. So, they are tried and true, except for a new little number I am way too excited about.
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Why Use Non-Toxic Cleaning Products?
I will not attempt a treatise on cleaning product risks. I am no expert, and there is a ton of information, opinion, research, and further questions on the topic. I am just a regular person who has read a lot over the years and prefers simple, less risky solutions to that necessary task of keeping the home clean.
Besides cancer, some common harms that can result from cleaning product ingredients include irritation to skin, lungs, and eyes, hormone and reproductive effects, allergy and asthma, brain-related and mental health problems (ADHD, for example), and more.
Perhaps I don’t need to say it, but these types of problems are rampaging through the population and making a lot of people suffer. I am not claiming that cleaning products are solely to blame!
However, switching to non-toxic cleaning products is a simple and cheap way to mitigate risk and maybe help improve some difficulty or other. A low-hanging fruit in the effort to care for our health!
Ways to Choose Safer Cleaning Products
Purchasing cleaners
There are excellent cleaning products you can just purchase and use! One way to vet your current products, or potential purchases, is via the Environmental Working Group’s evaluations. They are a third party and not supposed to be funded by the companies associated with the products they evaluate.
The harms of cleaning products are similar to personal care products, such as toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant, and makeup– EWG also has information about those! Or check my article about simple, frugal ways to make a few personal care products.
You can learn to read the labels and figure it out yourself; here are some ingredients to steer clear of:
- Fragrance/Parfum– Many are harmful, banned in Europe for this reason, and not disclosed on labels. There is no reliable regulation. Essential oils would be less worrisome most of the time.
- Butoxyethanol– Butoxyethanol is associated with reproductive problems, allergy, and asthma. It appears in a lot of cleaners and de-greasing products, especially for the kitchen.
- Ammonia– You may be familiar with the irritating fumes from ammonia. It is sort of “natural”, but not exactly harmless.
- Bleach– Another familiar ingredient, but harsh and can cause burns.
- Monoethanolamine (MEA), Diethanolamine (DEA), and/or Triethanolamine (TEA)– can cause irritation and contribute to organ damage, and is in a lot of products.
- Phthalates– too much can cause a mess– respiratory, hormone, and reproductive problems, cancer and much more.
- Formaldehyde– an irritant and carcinogen.
- Triclosan– messes up hormones and can cause allergic diseases in children.
- Sulfates– lathering soaps and detergents mostly contain sulfates, and they can damage skin.
Cleaning products you (or your kids) could eat
Another approach is to use only cleaning products (and personal care products) that you would eat. Presumably anything edible will be fairly safe for our skin, lungs, etc, and this is a neat way to easily vet your products. I am not quite there… I sometimes use edible ingredients– vinegar, baking soda, lemon, etc.
Make your own
If all the label reading seems daunting, and edible ingredients don’t always fit your needs, a third way to aim for non-toxic cleaning products is to make them using ingredients you are comfortable with, even if you might not actually be able to eat them.
The recipes and products I use aren’t all edible. I think they are fairly harmless. I like to keep things simple, so I use just a few recipes for non-toxic cleaning products, plus a couple of tools.
For more about which product ingredients may cause cancer, with risk rankings, check this article.
For a not-too-technical, fairly short explanation of common harms associated with cleaning products and which ingredients to avoid (and why!) check this article.
Here is another article showing how to read labels to avoid the most damaging ingredients.
What do I need to make non-toxic cleaning products?
To make the two main cleaners, you need to gather a few items:
- a spray bottle for each one– I have generally either repurposed a plastic spray bottle (even a junky dollar store cleaner– just dump out what comes in it) or bought an empty plastic bottle. They are cheap and not very breakable, though eventually they wear out and you need a new one. My best-ever plastic spray bottle is one I bought at Meijer years ago. It had to be more than 6 years ago, because we moved far from Meijer and I can’t find this one. It has a 360 degree top and sprays really well at odd angles. It may be something like this one. If you are using essential oils, most everyone will tell you not to use plastic, as the oils will degrade it. I have not had trouble with that in plastic bottles of cleaner! And I’m a little worried I will break a glass bottle. However, I decided to try it and ordered this one, which comes in pretty colors! Usually, all the natural girls have brown glass– it is pretty and even looks non-toxic– but I went with blue.
- liquid Castile soap— buy it in liquid form or, for a super cheap and not-so-hard alternative, buy the bar and liquefy it! I do this for hand soap and also use it in my all purpose cleaner. Learn how to do that here.
- hydrogen peroxide— the cheap stuff in the brown bottle is fine
- essential oil or a blend– this isn’t necessary, and I haven’t decided whether it actually makes the cleaner work better. The essential oil aficionados will affirm that it is effective. Maybe it is. It smells really nice, and is a real mood lifter, which is a plus when cleaning. I use the immune defense blend from Thrive Market, but you could use any citrus, eucalyptus, peppermint, pine, or whatever you like. Make sure it is compatible with your surfaces by testing a bit in an out-of-the-way spot.
- white vinegar— a big, cheap jug is generally a good deal.
- dish soap— I go for a lower-tox version without scent, maybe on sale
- orange peels or other citrus peels– if you want to make the vinegar smell better.
- rubbing alcohol or vodka— if you want to make glass cleaner
6 Non-Toxic Cleaning Products
All Purpose Cleaner
Well, most-purpose cleaner, anyway. I use this for most things, and keep some in the kitchen and each bathroom. It is super fast to make, and has worked well for us for years. You can skip the essential oil, but it makes it smell pretty and may boost the effectiveness. It is wise to test on sensitive surfaces, like wood or fussy countertops.
- fill a spray bottle most of the way with water
- add 1/4 C hydrogen peroxide
- add 1 tablespoon liquid Castile soap
- add 10-20 drops of essential oil– if you like– (I use the immune defense blend from Thrive Market, which smells wonderful, but something like citrus, peppermint, or eucalyptus would also be good)
That’s it! Give it a single shake each time you use it, as the oils will separate. I use this for counters, tile floors, table tops, cabinets, sometimes mirrors, and more.
De-Greaser
When you have a particularly greasy situation this simple combo works better than the all purpose cleaner. You will still need to scrub, but this stuff helps break the gunk up.
- 1 part vinegar
- 1 part dish soap– you can choose a low-tox one, or not
- 10-20 drops essential oil, if you want!
This is the easiest thing. You can mix it right in the spray bottle, even though the dish soap is thicker than vinegar. Shake it well to combine; it won’t separate later.
If you want to make the vinegar smell a little nicer– and milder– let it sit for a month or two with orange peels (or other citrus or a combination) in a covered jar. Stuff your peels in the jar, fill with vinegar, and set aside. Strain out the peels and any floaty bits before adding it to the spray bottle.
I use the de-greaser for kitchen and bathroom sinks (we use Castile soap that causes greasy soap scum), bathtub, shower, stovetop, occasionally oven, and toilet bowl.
It might seem odd to use it for the toilet bowl, and the all purpose cleaner (or baking soda with vinegar) works, but I think this works better. Less scrubbing!
Glass Cleaner
This isn’t my idea of non-toxic, but it is lower-tox than commercial glass cleaner. It works just as well. Also, it is cheap and easy.
- fill a spray bottle halfway with water
- fill the rest of the way with rubbing alcohol
That’s it! I use to add peppermint essential oil, but I stopped. Somehow it seems wrong to add oil to a glass cleaner, though it seemed to work fine. Maybe I just got lazy. I use it for mirrors and windows, mainly.
For a version that is more non-toxic, and fairly edible, I have seen people use vodka to clean glass. This makes sense, but I haven’t tried it. But you could!
Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner
This is the only cleaning spray I buy. As the name implies, you use Bona hardwood floor cleaner for your wood floors. We have used it on our floors for over 20 years, except for the year we didn’t have wood floors, with good results. It has no smell and is fairly safe.
Magic Eraser
No recipe needed! You are probably familiar with these. They are not especially natural, and not cheap. I don’t consider them terribly harmful, and they are so useful for all sorts of stubborn stains and marks. I have also had success with the bathroom version for a badly stained shower stall that nothing else (even bleach!) would shift.
Non-Toxic Oven Cleaner
This is my new favorite cleaning item! (Is is weird to have a favorite cleaning tool?!)
I dread cleaning the oven. Recently I stumbled on this scouring stick, and I am so glad I tried it! I don’t clean the oven often, but I use it a lot and it gets awful. Especially since I don’t do it often… Maybe now I will tackle that oven more frequently.
Commercial oven cleaner– even “fume free– isn’t exactly non-toxic. I never used it often, but still didn’t love having my head stuck in the oven scrubbing away with all those vapors.
There are lots of more natural (and not-so-natural) ways to clean the oven, and I have tried many of them. They eventually work, with a lot of scrubbing. Tiring, and not efficient.
I thought my oven cleaning woes were over when we bought a self-cleaning oven. Alas, it was fume-y and a little scary-sounding. Then I started hearing that the self-cleaning cycle takes years off your oven’s life. Plus the cabinetry got shockingly hot and I still had to clean the oven afterward. Not ideal.
How I used it
This light little pumice scrubber isn’t cheap, and doesn’t last long. I bought two for about $8, and used one up cleaning my gunky oven. It sort of disintegrates as you scrub. However, it took me less than half an hour, not including the oven racks. And that oven was dirty! So, it is a splurge– but not much more so than a can of oven cleaner if you get two cleanings for $8.
I sprayed the oven with de-greaser first (you need something wet for the stick to work), then scrubbed out the oven in under 1/2 hour. This was faster than oven-cleaning spray. I found it didn’t do well with the racks, so I scrubbed them with steel wool in the sink like usual.
Presumably, this scouring stick would work for many tasks, as advertised. I haven’t tried it, though.
There you go! Most of your cleaning tasks can be accomplished with these items– easy, mostly cheap, and non-toxic cleaning products!
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