Last Updated on November 11, 2022 by Brenda
Go green! Most of us are not happy with toxic cleaning chemicals. You can clean with essential oils effectively by including lemon, lavender, pine, cinnamon, rose, eucalyptus and more in your cleaning ingredients that I’ve listed further down the page.
Replace the commercial cleaners such as Pine-Sol, ammonia, Lime Away, Spic and Span and more by using green replacements that are natural, smell good, and save you a lot of money. Protect you and your family, the Earth, and the environment from the toxic elements found in store-bought cleaning products.
Pure 100% essential oils are known to disinfect and effectively clean your home. The essential oils are available online and are affordable.
When you want to clean up, add a few drops of an essential oil to a spray container, label it, and keep handy for small spills and splatters.
Of course we have been using the tried and true vinegar and baking soda forever it seems. Vinegar is the best hair rinse ever leaving no chemical residue to your hair follicles or your tresses. I’m beginning to think that shampoos and conditioners are making my hair fall out by the roots.
Apple cider or clear distilled vinegar can be used for deodorizing, disinfecting, removing soap scum, slashes through grease, cleans coffee and tea pots, and will stop mold from growing including bacteria. Use to disinfect your toilet, clean the cook stove, and mop the floors. You will have spotless shiny mirrors, windows, and glass picture frames using vinegar with old newspapers.
Baking soda right from the box on a damp cotton cloth is a gentle abrasive for cleaning chrome and other metal faucets, is antibacterial, deodorizing, and polishes teeth!
Zero Waste Cleaning Routine | Simple and Natural DIY Recipes with Essential Oils video.
Castile soap comes in bars and the best for a baby and adult bathing. The link page shows various sizes you can buy for your cleaning with essential oils.
I like the Kirk’s brand for my bath and shower. It is made using no animal by-products and is hypoallergenic. It is fragrance-free to use with essential oils for their pure aroma.
It is free of sodium lauryl/laureth sulfate, parabens, phthalates, EDTA, synthetic detergents, or gluten and it’s made in Kentucky, USA!
Homemade Lavender the Complete Cleaner
Get yourself a clean spray bottle, such as an old Windex glass cleaner bottle that you will now replace with this all-purpose general cleaner. Add a few drops of liquid dish washing detergent (not dishwasher detergent) and add 4 or 5 drops of lavender essential oil to the bottle of water.
Use 4 to 5 drops of pine for a clean smell or lemon for a crisp fresh fragrance. Add eucalyptus for killing bacteria. Shake the ingredients before spraying. Use separately or blend together.
This do-it-yourself cleaner will be helpful in your bathroom, kitchen, and all rooms with surfaces, sides, and fronts that need a little tender love. Spray, scrub, and wipe with a wet cloth with water and dry. You will love the nice smell left behind.
The dōTERRA® On Guard® Blend of cinnamon bark and leaf, wild orange peel, clove bud, eucalyptus leaf, and rosemary is a powerful proprietary combination that supports healthy immune function and contains cleansing properties to support healthy immune and respiratory functions. It will protect against environmental threats and supports the body’s natural antioxidant defenses.
As one of best-selling blends from doTERRA®, On Guard® protects against environmental and seasonal threats with essential oils known for their positive effects on the immune system. doTERRA® On Guard® can be taken internally on a daily basis to maintain healthy immune function and support healthy cardiovascular function. It can also be used on surfaces throughout the home as a non-toxic cleaner. When diffused, doTERRA® On Guard® helps purify the air, and can be very energizing and uplifting.
Read more about it in the Product Description at the above link on Amazon.
Homemade Pine Solution Floor Cleaner
To a gallon bucket of water, add 1 cup of distilled clear vinegar. Shake in 5 to 10 drops of pine, spruce, juniper berry, and lemon for its cleaning power and residual fragrance.
You can add a few drops of liquid dishwashing detergent if you like and then rinse. Let the floor air dry. This can be used on laminate, tile, and linoleum floors.
The smell of vinegar will be diminished using fragrant essential oils.
Your space will smell like walking through a conifer forest and I love that smell having lived in the Colorado mountains for years.
Natural Ant Repellent
Those small odorous ants that stink or larger ants that enter your home can be killed using essential oils rather than chemical products that never worked for me. They do not like cinnamon, clove bud, peppermint, bay leaf, Cayenne pepper or chili seed. I don’t like to put any hot chili powder spice on the floors due to the red color staining them.
Mix any of these essential oils into a spray bottle adding 5 to 10 drops. Spray and let sit. Ants leave a scent trail for their buddies to follow them, so mask it with a spritz of clear distilled vinegar as well.
When you use toxic Raid or ant killing chemicals, you risk your kids getting into it. Spray your mixture around doors and baseboards to keep them out. It took me over a year to get rid of the ones in my laundry room coming up from the crawl space in my house. Try to find the holes they are coming in from and calk them shut.
Vacuum Cleaner
Put a few drops of 100% pure essential oil on a cotton ball and put inside your vacuum cleaner bag or canister. It will smell like when you use a diffuser into the air vacuuming your carpet.
Purification essential oil offers a wonderful fragrance while it deodorizes and purifies the air. Any citrus will smell clean and refreshing to the air in your room. Thieves essential oil provides a baked apple pie fragrance with its cinnamon and orange blend.
Laundry
Bed sheets will have dust mites from your shedding of dry dead skin while you sleep. They are so small you will never see them. To wash them off your bedding, add 20 to 30 drops of eucalyptus 100% pure essential oil to your laundry water with the detergent.
If you have baby diapers that you wash alone, or under panties, or men’s shorts washed separately from baby diapers, add 5 drops of tea tree essential oil to the wash water along with your laundry detergent. It will disinfect and eliminate the need to use bleach that seems to put holes in fabric and wear it out.
Where you have stains, try not using Shout stain remover and use 2 drops of lemon essential oil instead. Let the oil sit a few minutes and use an old toothbrush in circular motions to remove the stain. Be sure it’s all gone before washing and drying. The dryer’s heat will permanently set the stain to never get it out.
I gave up expensive dryer sheets years ago needing to use 5 sheets to get my clothes soft with a nice smell embedded in them. What I learned was by wetting a clean washcloth with water and adding about 10 drops of lemon, lavender, ylang-ylang, or other essential oils I had, I could achieve the same fragrant benefit.
My clothes are actually soft enough without the chemicals in dryer sheets or softeners added to the washer’s rinse water. Those chemicals are surfactants that make water wetter than wet to feel soft.
Window, Mirrors, and Glass Cleaner
I already mentioned above that vinegar is the best glass cleaner bar none. Mix a cup of clear distilled vinegar into a spray bottle, preferably glass. Pour in water to about three-fourths full and add about 10 drops of lemon 100% pure essential oil and shake.
Spray onto your windows, mirrors, or any glass surface such as a table top, and wipe clean with a cotton cloth, not paper towels. Get the squeaky clean shine by finishing off with newspapers. Cleaning with essential oils when using vinegar leaves a lovely smelling fragrance after about a half hour once the vinegar smell dissipates.
All Natural Furniture Polish
When going green using all natural products, our place smells better than when using chemicals from the stores. Did you know that clear distilled vinegar will clean wood without ruining the finish? It’s true!
You can remove water rings using toothpaste on wood furniture. Black tea is good to clean in and fill small scratches. Markers in different colors are made specifically for filling in wood and they are permanent.
In decades gone by before chemical everything was made, the women of the house would make up a balm of beeswax and herbs. Today, use essential oils and beeswax using:
1/2-cup sweet almond oil
1/8-cup of beeswax
10-15 drops lemon essential oil
This is the wax bees make in their hive to store their honey in the hexagon-shaped honeycombs. It’s interesting to read about honey bees that are being destroyed by man’s chemicals and viruses.
My dad was a beekeeper maintaining a huge group of hives up until he passed away taking special care to dismantle the hives and let them fly away to build their hives again in dead trees or where the bees decided best.
Back to how to make your concoction for cleaning and maintaining your beautiful wood furniture whether antique or contemporary.
A double boiler is best to use, but most of us do not own one today. If you do have one, put water into the bottom pot and heat the beeswax and almond essential oil until completely melted in the top pot.
Personally, I like double boilers made of glass such as this one by Corning® Visions®. They are available for less money in stainless-steel and the best for melting chocolate and making other goodies to not stick to a single pot or pan. They can be used separately to cook in as well.
Or, using a microwave oven, put the beeswax and almond oil into a glass dish covered with a paper towel and melt it on the lowest power setting the same as you would refrigerator-cold hard butter.
Test it to be sure the wax is totally melted by dipping a bit onto a piece of paper. Let it cool until firm. After it’s cooled you will want to check its consistency and if it’s too hard, add a tad more oil; if too soft, and more beeswax and melt it again.
The mixture should be soft enough to give a bit when you touch it. Now add the lemon essential oil or if you like, use lavender, rose, or whatever is your favorite fragrance.
Store in a plastic container with lid or a wide mouth glass jar with lid. You want to be able to get your fingers into the container to grab it to use when you want to clean with essential oils.
To polish wood furniture, rub a clean cotton cloth across the polish and apply rubbing it in. Then buff with another clean dry cotton cloth, and not paper towels. The wood will now hold its moisture and not scratch with the beeswax. The lemon oil will remove fingerprints and other dust.
This wax is best for solid wood furniture, doors, baseboard, window frames, and other sold wood pieces you have.
Laminated wood veneers can be washed down with detergent and water.
Final Thoughts on Cleaning with Essential Oils
Clean with essential oils effectively and notice the difference in how your head and body feels using non-toxic methods. A 15 mL bottle of essential oil holds about 250 drops, so don’t be afraid to use it.
Feel welcome to leave a comment or ask a question and I will respond to each one. Have fun cleaning!
