By Just Heather | Leave A Comment
Okay, fess up —how many of you had to go out and buy a bottle of vinegar for Easter? I used to run to the store the day before Easter to buy the tiniest bottle of vinegar I could find, since we only used it once each year. The smell of vinegar has always been equated with dyeing eggs. Now, though, I buy gallons at a time to use all over the house!
If you’re looking for an easy, inexpensive start to going green, here are my favorite uses for vinegar.
Fabric Softener: Just add vinegar to the fabric softener compartment of your washer to reduce static & prevent wrinkles. I promise your clothes will not smell like vinegar! But, they will be noticeably softer & chemical free.
Rinse Aid: Similarly, vinegar makes a great rinse aid in the dishwasher. Fill the rinse compartment with vinegar to keep both chemicals and water spots off your dishes!
Drain Cleaner: Use vinegar with its green cleaning friend, baking soda. Remember the science fair volcanoes? Same idea here—sprinkle baking powder on the drain and add vinegar. It will bubble and improve slow-running drains. (Quick note: This won’t work on really tough clogs. You’ll want a drain snake to remove those.)
Mop Solution: Mix half vinegar & half water in a spray bottled. (We keep one marked for just this use.) Spray on the floor, then mop. No need to rinse—the smell will dissipate when the floor is dry.
Lime Remover: If your faucets have lime rings, vinegar can come to the rescue again. Fill a plastic bag (check out Ziploc’s new green line for eco-friendly baggies) with vinegar and rubberband it to your faucet. This will allow it to soak overnight to loosen the grime. A little elbow grease should finish the job!
All-Purpose Cleaner: This is similar to the mop solution, but I also add a little rubbing alcohol to the mix. Spray on windows, counters, doorknobs or light switches. Wipe clean—it disinfects too!
Seriously, vinegar is liquid awesome for green living fans. In fact, there’s an entire site dedicated to vinegar tips! What is your favorite use?
Photo credit: Mango Sparrow via Flickr
ABOUT Just Heather
Heather Sokol is a work at home mother of three girls. They have created in her a Montessori Mom, Sc{read more}
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Thanks for sharing these. I mainly use it right now for getting the musty smell out of clothes I’ve left in the washer too long. lol But I’m going to save this for later and give them a try. Thanks!
Love!
You can also make a green disinfectant with vinegar. Have one spray bottle of white vinegar and another spray bottle with peroxide (you know, the kind you have in your medicine cabinet for cuts.) The combination of the two will kill anything, even as well as bleach.
Thanks for sharing! I’ll give vinegar a try in the dishwasher and washing machine. As it stands, I have to rinse my dishes after they go through the dishwasher to get off the soap scum… would LOVE to be able to skip this!
my great grandmother, my grandmother and my mother all used vinegar to clean everything in the house and i’ve always used it since moving out on my own and having to clean my own home. so great to know it’s making a ‘retro savvy green’ comeback!
another tip: if you boil a pot of vinegar and add it to scalding hot tap water to wash your floors, your floors will be super shiny from the heated vinegar.
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Thanks for the extra ideas, ladies! I’ll be adding them to my arsenal.
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My mom always used it to clean out her coffee maker. Now that I’m married I use the same trick! About once a month I run a load of half water half vinegar through my coffee maker. Then I do another rinse with just water. We live in the country and have hard water so it helps keep the lime and hard water build up out of my coffee maker and it helps the essential machine of my life running like clockwork!!
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I went to a restaurant in Vermont and saw Ziploc baggies hanging from trees and the structure of the building and inside the baggies there was white vinegar. When asked what this was for the reply was “to keep bees, wasps and flies away.” This really works.