All Natural Lavender and Tea Tree Home Spray Cleaner

If part of your New Year’s resolution is to make 2012 a little more harmonious, or you want to become more eco-conscious, I’m going to share an absolute wonder with you.  It’s an all-natural spray cleaner you can make yourself that’s not only exponentially less expensive than harsh chemical cleaners, it’s just as effective and gives your home a wonderful natural fragrance that’s fresh and clean.

The ingredients are simple; water, vinegar, borax, lavender essential oil and tea tree essential oil.  The natural properties of the essential oils are effective germ killers and it cleans just as well as the strong chemical cleaners.  I don’t know about you, but the smell of those cleaners was always a huge turn-off to me.  When the newer commercial “green” cleaners became available, they were closer to this homemade cleaner but ridiculously expensive.

There’s another unexpected benefit to this homemade cleaner.  You find yourself enjoying the aromatherapy benefits of the lavender and tea tree oils as you clean.  Sounds silly I suppose, but once you try it, you’ll never want to go back.

You can get the recipe for my cleaner and read more about it here.

“Green” Lavender Laundry Detergent You Can Make Yourself

If you’re environmentally concerned, or if you’re bothered by harsh chemicals and want to go natural and more harmonious in your home cleaning, I have something for you to try.  It’s a soapless laundry detergent you can make yourself.  You may not believe me, but it’s just as effective as any detergent I’ve purchased from a store.  The thing about it that amazed me the most was the fact it was gentler on my fabrics.  The faint residual aroma of lavender was a pleasant departure from chemical fragrances.

Now here’s the real hook…  it’ll cost you only pennies a load.  The ingredients are not hard to find and you can just refill the same container when you run out, so no plastics clogging up the landfills.  The ingredients go back essentially to harmless salts.

For the recipe and if you’d like more detailed information, you can read my article here.