Homemade Cleaning Spray with Essential Oils – Essential Oil Cleaner Recipe
It feels like winter has dragged on here in Canada. No, that’s not true. It doesn’t FEEL like it’s dragged on, it really has dragged on. It’s April 8th and we still have snow, AND there was another snow storm 2 days ago. However, I got a glimpse of the sun last week, and the forecast predicts rising temperatures, so I am choosing to believe Spring is on it’s way.
It HAS to be on it’s way. My heart can’t take much more of the white stuff. And this is coming from a girl who actually ENJOYS the snow.
Spring was officially a few weeks ago, which means, eventually it has to come, am I right? There’s nothing like spring flowers, the trees budding, or the birds singing.
But, unfortunately, with all the things that bring out all the spring feels, it also comes with something not as exciting – spring cleaning.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a fresh start, and sometimes a fresh start requires cleaning out all those nooks and crannies. It requires some decluttering. And it definitely requires some extra scrubbing around the house. Especially if you are like me and you have been running a woodstove for the last 7 months. Oh, how I love my woodstove, but it’s DIRTY!
So I thought now was the perfect time to share an essential oil cleaner recipe. This homemade cleaning spray with essential oils will have your home sparkling in no time!.
Years ago, at this time we were preparing our house to put it on the market. We had learned how to declutter a lot over the previous years, even embracing a more minimalist mindset. We still had too much stuff to fit neatly into the minimalist category, but I always felt better living with less stuff and would often drop off loads to the thrift store.
Except that, every once in awhile we’d come across some things that were just too old and in rough shape to go to the thrift store, and too big to fit into a garbage bag. So we’d carry it out to the shed to “eventually” bring it to the dump.
You can already guess how this story is going to go, can’t you? Yep, it was almost 8 years of bringing things out to the shed for the “eventual” dump run. We didn’t have a truck, so instead of figuring out how to get rid of it we just hid it out of sight in hopes that it would somehow take care of itself. You know, out of sight out of mind kind of thing.
When we were getting our house ready for sale there was no more avoiding it. We did way too many runs to dispose of the clutter and I promised myself that never again would I let it get that way. I will do a dump run every single spring AT least!
In my defense, I didn’t realize decluttering was a thing. We didn’t have much growing up so there wasn’t really a need to declutter. Either that or my parents DID declutter and I never noticed. Either way, no one ever advised me that decluttering was a necessary, REGULAR part of life. Especially with kids.
So, that is my plan over the next few weeks as we start out enjoying Spring – a trip to the dump. In between starting our garden, bonfires, and soaking in as much sunshine as I can of course.
Because, man, I’ve missed that bright yellow thing in the sky.
WHY YOU NEED A HOMEMADE CLEANING SPRAY
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But it doesn’t matter if it’s Spring, Summer, Fall, or Winter, there’s always counters and cupboards and tables and chairs and whatever else that comes to mind that needs to be wiped down. I feel like I am always finding fingerprints all over. Especially on all my stainless steel appliances. Whoever thought stainless steel was a good idea, I don’t know. White appliances were much easier to clean.
I love to use this cleaner to wipe down my counters and my stove, but I’ve also used it to wipe up messes on the floor. You know, like when my kids were younger and were so eager to collect the eggs from the coop, only to drop one on the kitchen floor.
An easy diy all-purpose household cleaner is an great way to make sure you can easily wipe down all those surfaces without all those harsh chemicals of the cleaners in the stores. Most likely you have most of the ingredients at home allowing you to easily mix this up at moment’s notice.
While this recipe has tea tree and orange, you can definitely switch them out for your favorite oils. I do like having the tea tree essential oil in there for it’s antibacterial properties but adding other scents like lavender in there is definitely an option. We always have tea tree oil on hand because it’s useful for so many other things as well.
If you have issues with spiders it’s not a bad idea to add in some peppermint essential oil in there. They hate peppermint.
HOMEMADE ALL-PURPOSE CLEANER WITH ESSENTIAL OILS
1 cup vinegar
1 Cup water
1/2 cup lemon juice
10 drops tea tree essential oil
10 drops wild orange essential oil
Pour it all into a bottle and that’s really all there is to it! You can buy chalkboard labels at the dollar store as well as spray bottles. I had a real habit of not labeling spray bottles for a while there so I had to resort to smelling them to figure out what was in it. Thankfully I’ve gotten much better over the years at labeling them.
My favorite thing to use this spray for is my countertops. It smells good and the tea tree oil provides antibacterial qualities which is always a good thing when cleaning. While I like to use the orange essential oil to go along with the lemon juice citrus-y scent, you could use any of your favorite essential oils in this cleaner. Geranium would be nice in the spring with it’s gorgeous floral scent.
ESSENTIAL OILS CLEANING SPRAY HELP US KEEP A CLEAN AND GREEN HOME
I love how with just a few simple ingredients I can keep my house clean! Green cleaning products at the grocery store are always a better option than the regular, chemical laden products, but those don’t always fit into the budget. By making your products at home you are able to keep the chemicals out of your home, but also afford more natural cleaning solutions.
Happy Spring, and happy cleaning!!
