Homemade Window Cleaner

Good morning! (or afternoon. Whatever.)

We're still plugging away over here on school, chores, cooking, nothing too exciting.
This morning I mailed off 6 of my beloved cloth diapers to be converted from hook and loop closures to snaps by this lady. I sent her the very worst looking ones (after 4 years of use) and I'm so excited to see them transformed.

Anyway, I wanted to share a tip today that I've been using for quite a few months now. With 4 kids running around here, I do a lot of cleaning. A lot. Sticky fingers are at epidemic level right now, and something that gets its share of use in our home is window cleaner~ a.k.a. mirror, floor, trim, door, doorknob, cabinet, etc, cleaner. For a long time I used the blue stuff. (Ok, to be accurate, I bought the pink kind. It smelled better.)

Something that always bothered me, though, is having this little collection of curious, very smart, explorer babies and the idea that they could find my cleaning stash and get into big trouble.

Last year, I did a bit of Google research and found that I could make my own non-toxic homemade cleaner with ingredients that I had laying around the house and the potion wouldn't kill my kids if they got brave enough to take a swig. (Yeah, but not that my kids would ever do that.)

Without further ado, here's the recipe:

1 c. rubbing alcohol

1 c. water

1 Tbsp vinegar

Yep, it's that easy. I bought an empty spray bottle for $0.99 from the Walmart cleaning aisle and filled it with 2 batches. You could just as easily reuse an empty spray bottle. I like to put the recipe on the side so I don't have to look it up again when it's time to refill.

Did I mention that it costs about $0.15 per bottle?

I keep the bottle close to my stash of microfiber towels so I only have one stop on the way to the mess.

I love this method of cleaning. It's easy, natural and has virtually no waste. The contribution of alcohol to the cleaner means there are no streaks left on glass and even if there were, the microfiber would take care of that. When you're done, pop that towel into the washer and you're ready to go for the next time. Which, in my case, means tomorrow.