when life gives you lemons... use them to clean your kitchen

I Google. Yes I do. I Google super random things that even I can't remember why when I look back in my search history. Many times auto-fill will lead me on a strange journey through the interwebs until suddenly I discover a hidden gem. Such a thing happened the other week when a search accidentally turned up a review of different spray bottles (what?) and I stumbled upon this!

I've wanted to start making my own cleaning products again and, as a sucker for neat ideas wrapped in a cute design, fell in love with this all-inclusive DIY cleaning product kit by Full Circle.

The Come Clean Natural Cleaning Set by Full Circle comes with:

Two spray bottles, one squeezy bottle, two juicers, bottle labels, a recipe booklet and a cleaning cloth.

As an apartment renter I'm always very storage conscious. I don't want a bunch of crap around that I only use once in a while, so I could also appreciate that all the ingredients I needed were very versatile as well. In fact, the only thing I had to actually buy to get started was the castile soap.

I jumped right in and made three cleaners:

BATHROOM SPRAY

1 part vinegar

1 part water

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

This is a light cleaner that is great for daily wipe-downs of the counter or for a quick freshen up around the loo. I'll admit I still need to embrace my heavy-duty toilet and shower cleaners for now, but am looking into a safer homemade recipe that will stand up to those.

KITCHEN SPRAY

1 part vinegar

2 parts water

1 tablespoon of castile soap

Juice of 1 lemon

This cleaner gets an A+. Love it. I used it right away and it cut through the grease on my stove top and brightened my grout. I will, however be adding some essential oils for scent. Even though the vinegar smell quickly dissipates, I still like to feel pretty while I'm cleaning, so a little mint or lavender couldn't hurt, right? They also make many scented castile soaps that would do the trick as well.

ABRASIVE CLEANER

3 parts baking soda

1 part warm water

1 teaspoon of castile soap

Juice of 1 lemon

This I used in my sink and, again - wowzas for performance!

But, this is where I need to pause...

I need to be real here and tell you it wasn't all Marthy-Stewarty-perfect-and-wonderful. Everything was going great until I got to making the abrasive cleaner. I'm not sure what happened (and, no, I didn't mix the vinegar and baking soda), but the bottle exploded. Everywhere. Since the bottle comes apart near the top to accommodate the juicer, as I was shaking it up, it literally blew up in my face. My face, clothes, table, chairs, floor, walls - all covered in lemon, vinegar and baking soda. Wonderful!

Maybe I misread the recipe instructions and should have stirred it all up in a bowl first before pouring it into the container, but I thought the point was kinda that you could make it all inside the bottle.

Anyhoo, all in all...

But only because I got vinegar all over my face.

xo Becky