Monday, August 6, 2012

Homemade Alternatve to Chlorox Wipes

This is one of my favorite homemade cleaners. I LOVE the convenience of Clorox or Lysol wipes so I was THRILLED to find alternatives on Pinterest. I actually combined a couple of recipes to get the cleaning power and smell that I wanted. Here is what you need:

1/2 cup of water
1/8 cup rubbing alcohol
1 T. Dawn dish soap (*author says to only use Dawn)
A few drops of Tea tree oil
Container (I just saved a Lysol wipe one, but you could use a baby wipe container too)
Cut up men's undershirts


I filled the container about this full of my "wipes" which I LOVE that I can wash a reuse! That saves money and eliminates wastes! 

I love the smell of tea tree oil so that was appeal, but did it clean well??? YES! Here is a before and after picture of where my very messy daughter sits to eat. :)
 

I really love these and think that they work well, but I had to put the to the "husband test". He agree that they work well with one comment of thinking that it did not feel wet enough. I think that they are fine, but next time I may put less wipes next time. If you find that a wipe is too dry you can wet it with a very small amount of water. If you use too much water they get too soapy.

I normally will do a cost comparison here, however since the wipes are washable and reusable, there is just no comparison, it is obvious that this will save tons!
 
Since I decided that these are for sure something I will repeat, I wrote the recipe on the container. Happy cleaning  all of you money and Earth saving DIY friends! ;)

7 comments:

  1. I love that you didn't use any bleach, since it's bad for the enviro, yo. 7th gen makes a world-friendly bleach I like, but alas, WalMart has stopped carrying it. They make a disposable wipe too, with thyme. I wonder if you steep fresh thyme leaves in your water mix if it would take on that fragrance...?

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  2. The fragrance of the tea tree oil is pretty awesome, but I may try that when I plant some herbs. I LOVE that there is not bleach too because I can give them to my kids to clean the baseboards without worrying about chemicals on their skin. Don't worry I am not running a sweat shop, they like to do chores... we'll see how long that lasts!

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  3. lol. You'll have enough kids for a sweatshop soon! ;) I think I looked into growing melaleuca... can't remember why I decided against it. To get any herb/flower to make into an oil, you've got to have BUCKETS of it, plus a distilling rig type thing. But it would be a nice addition, for fragrance if nothing else.

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  4. Thank you for this! Who would think that almost 8 years later,our lives would be so changed by a virus!! Bless you.

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  5. I love the idea of DIY disinfecting wipes, but the rubbing alcohol is diluted way too much to be a disinfectant in this formula. It should be diluted no less than 60%, taking into account how dilute it is when you buy it (usually 70% or 91%).

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  6. Maggie B is correct. To disinfect you will need decrease the water, increase the alcohol and add more tea oil. Tea tree oil also has disinfecting properties.

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  7. this is great! do I have to use tea tree oil or can I use any essential oil- the tea tree is for aromatic purposes + does not actually have any cleaning properties, correct?

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