The Pinterest reviews – Going green: natural cleaning products

Over the past few months, I’ve tried my hand at making household cleaners out of natural products.  Some attempts have been much more successful than other attempts.  I tell myself I’m doing this because I want to be green, but really, I’m just frugal.  One thing I’m realizing is that frugality is no good if the end result is a failure.  So, I’ll be buying some cleaning products and making others . . . I”m okay with that.

Dishwasher detergent

Source: beingcreativetokeepmysanity.blogspot.com via Judy on Pinterest

We run our dishwasher daily, sometimes twice a day.  I really wanted a way to save money on dishwasher detergent.  Thinking this was the ticket, I bought the ingredients and gave it a whirl.  Can’t say that I was that impressed.  Our dishes just feel sort of dingy.  They are clean, but the glasses, for example and sort of cloudy looking and the dishes just feel . . . dingy.  I should say that our dishwasher seems to be giving up the ghost.  And I’m sure this is a shock to noone, Mrs. Landlady is trying to blame us rather than getting it fixed.  So to be fair, I should probably try this detergent using a dishwasher that is fully functional.

Oven glass cleaner

Source: somewhatsimple.com via Judy on Pinterest

This totally did not work for me.  I used it inside the oven as well as on the glass.  The glass got clean, but it wasn’t amazingly so and there was a whitish film left over, even after I rinsed the glass very well.

General cleaning products

Source: younghouselove.com via Judy on Pinterest

Source: howtomakedo.net via Judy on Pinterest

Most of these are pretty decent.  I will say that unless you have a co-op nearby where you can get liquid castile soap for cheap, these recipes really are not all that cost effective.  The local co-op (Common Grounds . . . love that store) has about 8 different scents of castile soap, and it’s quite economical.

Spring cleaning the mattress

Source: make-it-do.com via Judy on Pinterest

I did this with all of our mattresses.  I have no idea if it was actually useful, but it was fun doing it and we’ll probably do it again once the winter is over.

Liquid hand soap

Source: familyoffarmers.blogspot.com via Judy on Pinterest

I really wanted this recipe to work out.  Having three small children means we go through ridiculous amounts of liquid soap. Alas, the soap turned out pretty watered down, as in, you have to use several pumps to get any lather.  Plus, it’s kinda mucousy looking, which is not exactly confidence inspiring. I’m going to try and run this through a foaming soap dispenser to see if that works any better . . . I’m not holding out much hope, though.

Bathtub cleaner

Source: greenliving.nationalgeographic.com via Judy on Pinterest

Here’s another cleaner that I thought would be great . . . but it’s not.  I want something that will really clean the bathtub.  You know, remove the grime that is there.  After using this and scrubbing like crazy, I could still see grime   . .gross!  I’ll definitely be buying bathtub cleaner from now on.