How To Make A Natural Bathroom Cleaner

If you want to live a healthy life, you have to pay attention to your physical and mental wellbeing. To keep yourself physically healthy, you take note of what you eat, you exercise regularly, and you sleep well. Is that enough though? You should also aspire to make your home healthier. And the first step you can take in this direction is to make your own cleaners. In this post, we will teach you how to make a natural bathroom cleaner.

This natural cleaner will make your bathroom sparkling clean without the use of any toxic chemicals. Without further ado, let’s discuss this DIY bathroom cleaner and see how easy it is to make it.

How to make your own DIY all-natural bathroom cleaner

With just three natural ingredients, you can make a natural bathroom cleaner that will leave your bathroom shiny clean and fresh. This DIY bathroom cleaner is made with baking soda, lemon essential oil, and white vinegar. It’s safe for children, daily use, and it takes just a minute to make it.

Natural Bathroom Cleaner Recipe

Once you see how easy it is to make this cleaner and how well it works, you will not go back to commercial cleaners that are filled with toxic and potentially dangerous chemicals.

What you need to make the bathroom cleaner:

• Mason jar;
• Spray bottle;
• Lemon essential oil;
• Baking soda;
• White vinegar.

Steps for making the DIY bathroom cleaner:

• To make the cleaner, mix a few drops (~15 drops) of lemon essential oil with a jar full of baking soda. Make sure you mix well.
• Keep the white vinegar separate in a spray bottle. Do not mix all the ingredients together!

How to use the natural cleaner:

When you’re ready to clean your bathroom, sprinkle the surface with the baking soda-lemon essential oil mixture. Spray with white vinegar and let sit for a couple of minutes. Use a brush to scrub clean the surface.

You can use this cleaner on pretty much any bathroom surface including the sink, the toilet, the bathtub, and the shower.

Why Baking Soda And Vinegar

Baking soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate, is an alkaline chemical compound that has the ability to clean but also to deodorize almost any type of surface. Furthermore, the mild alkali is a gentle abrasive too. On the other hand, vinegar is very acidic so it has a low pH. Vinegar is also a great natural cleaner with antiseptic properties. White vinegar removes stains, rust, and mold with ease.

When you combine these two substances, a natural chemical reaction occurs. If you mixed vinegar with baking soda before, you know that, when you combine the two, they instantly start to foam and fizz all over the place. You probably used these two ingredients to make a volcano in science class. What you did not know back then is that the fizzing reaction is what makes these two ingredients so great for cleaning.

The thing is, once they are done fizzing, the chemical reaction ends. That’s why it is best to keep them separate and sprinkle the baking soda followed by white vinegar when cleaning, instead of combining the two in a bottle. If you combine them in the bottle, they won’t react and, as a result, the cleaner will be less effective. Applied separately they work great and they can break through stains, mold, grout, grime, built-up soap residue, and so on.

Why Lemon Essential Oil

Lemon essential oil is not a mandatory ingredient in this natural bathroom cleaner but it clearly adds a nice finishing touch, especially if you don’t like the smell of vinegar. Besides, your bathroom will be nicely and freshly scented without the use of fragrance.

Thanks to the natural antibacterial properties of lemon essential oil, your DIY bathroom cleaner will also sanitize the surfaces in your bathroom and will keep harmful bacteria away.

Alternative DIY Bathroom Cleaner Ingredients

If the fizzy baking soda-vinegar was never your favorite cleaning combo, you can experiment with other natural ingredients.

If you don’t like using baking soda, you can replace it with pure castile soap. As a matter of fact, castile soap is a great cleaner on its own. But when you add white vinegar, it gives the cleaner an extra oomph. This combination works perfectly as a natural bathroom cleaner but it’s also great around the kitchen. Another great idea is to use diluted white vinegar. The plain diluted vinegar cleaner works for cleaning the bathroom mirror or the shower doors. All you have to do to make this solution is to combine equal parts of water and white vinegar in a spray bottle.

On the other hand, if you cannot stand the smell of vinegar, you can still rely on the wonderful properties of baking soda if you mix it with something else. Like salt and washing soda, for example. The powerful powder you create is a great bathroom cleaner. And, if you want the fresh lemon smell, you can definitely add a few drops of lemon essential oil as well.

Why Use A Natural Bathroom Cleaner

Commercial bathroom cleaners are filled with toxic chemicals. It is best to toss the toxins and make your own DIY cleaner with natural ingredients. In this way, you know that you are protected against harmful chemicals. Moreover, you don’t have to deal with the toxic smell of the commercial cleaners that lingers long after you finish cleaning.

If you’re curious why commercial cleaners are so bad for your health, take a look at the most common ingredients they contain:

Ammonium Chlorides

Ammonium chlorides pose a high risk for human health. These chemicals are particularly dangerous for those who suffer from asthma but they can also be detrimental for reproductive health.

Silicon Compounds

On its own, silicone is not dangerous but, when you break it down and add it to a cleaner, the story changes drastically. The silicone compounds can harm the endocrine and reproductive systems. It can also lead to developmental problems.

The silicone compounds are problematic when inhaled so, unless you clean your bathroom with a mask, it is best to stay away from cleaners that have silicone compounds on the ingredient list.

Butoxydiglycol

While butoxydiglycol is technically better than the ingredients we mentioned so far, it is not 100% safe and it poses a high concern for the pulmonary function.

Fragrance

With artificial fragrance you never know what you get. You can get something perfectly safe or something very toxic. That’s because the manufacturers don't need to list the ingredients they use in their fragrances. Therefore, your safest bet is to stick to natural scents like essential oils.