Vinegar is one amazing product – I use it all over the house for homemade cleaning products, cooking and even on my hair (apple cider vinegar conditioner)! As much as I love it, the smell does get to me sometimes and I’ve finally gotten around to making my own scented vinegar to take the edge off that strong smell.
With orange and clementine season starting here in the US, it’s the perfect time to start making your own orange-infused vinegar! After you eat your orange, save the peel and put it in a jar or other air-tight container and cover the peels with white vinegar. Let it sit for a couple of weeks (don’t need more than two), then strain out the peels and you have orange-scented vinegar! Of course, lemons and limes also work very well for this.
Garbage Disposal Cleaner
After straining the peels from the vinegar, keep those peels. They should be very soft (if not, soak them a few more days). Then, throw them in your garbage disposal and crank it up! The peels, along with the vinegar, make an excellent garbage disposal cleaner because the vinegar kills bacteria-causing odors and the orange peels zap odors.
I love how I can use the entire orange to have a healthy snack, make cleaning products AND clean my garbage disposal. It doesn’t get more eco-friendly than that!
Easy Ways to Use Vinegar for Cleaning
Vinegar is an excellent cleaner – it works on mold, mildew and bacteria. It’s also cheap, readily available, green, eco-friendly (doesn’t harm ground water, lakes, streams, aquatic life), and non-toxic. Here are a few quick and easy ways to use it (there are many more, but these are the ones I use all the time).
- Window Cleaner - Put in a spray bottle and use it straight up on windows and mirrors. I have used this for a long time and it works just as well as Windex without all the nasty chemicals! I also use it on my glasses.
- Bathroom Cleaner – Check out my recipes for homemade cleaning products using vinegar.
- Disinfectant – Put in a spray bottle and spray directly on countertops, cutting boards, toilet seats, the shower, toys and more! It naturally kills germs and bacteria and the best part is, unlike Lysol, you don’t have to wipe it clean or worry about those horrible chemicals getting into your food or babies’ mouths!
- Drain Cleaner – Pour down stinky, clogged drains, along with baking soda, and the two react to naturally clean gunk and stank nastiness out of your pipes!
- Laundry Detergent Softener – Pour straight into the detergent softener compartment and fill to the line marked. That’s it! It does not leave a vinegar scent on my clothes and does a nice job of softening.
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Tiny Tip Tuesday at Nature’s Nurture
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Clever Chicks Blog Hop
Love ACV! I keep a bottle in the shower for outbreaks of athlete’s foot…pour it on after the shower and the fungus is gone after a couple days.
This is a great idea! I would think that mint would also be nice. Thanks for the tip!
Awesome post! I am trying to use more natural cleaners and this sounds perfect. I love citrus-scented products so I can’t wait to try this out. Thanks for sharing!
Visiting from Tiny Tip Tuesday
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I have a HUGE bottle of vinegar that’s just waiting for this! Thanks for sharing all the great uses. I didn’t realize vinegar could disinfect!
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Yay, great, Erin! Glad you can put that big bottle of vinegar to use. Vinegar is great for disinfecting – you can spray it on countertops, toilet seats, doorknobs, etc. as well and don’t have to wipe it clean!
Girl, I’ve been meaning to make this FOREVER! I just had an orange this morning and saved the peel because I decided I finally had to start, and then I check my link ups this week and find your post LOL! Ok, so I’m glad you mentioned that you use it in the laundry, because I use regular vinegar in the laundry and just had a reader ask if it was ok to use the citrus-infused one as well, and I had no idea because I hadn’t tried it yet. So thanks for that
Sarah @ Nature’s Nurture recently posted..What Does “All Natural” Really Mean?
So happy to feature your awesome cleaner at my Super Link Party!
http://earning-my-cape.blogspot.com/2012/11/super-link-party-28.html
Happy Thanksgiving!
Oh, and thanks for letting me know about the order on my party. I fixed it.
susie at earning-my-cape recently posted..Super Link Party #28
P.S. Not sure why, but I can’t get your button pic to show up on my sidebar???
susie at earning-my-cape recently posted..Super Link Party #28
Hey Susie! It might be a WordPress versus Blogger thing, I’m not sure. I’ll email you!
Thank you for these great tips! Will be definitely be making lots of the home cleaning product, and the hair conditioner, too!
You’re welcome, Sandie! Thanks for stopping by.
I did it and it is fabulous. Perfect in a spray bottle and my kitchen floors look great. I’m going to try it on a corner of the wood floors and see how it works out.
The combination of citrus and vinegar works wonders on my stove, too.
Fantastic! Thanks for sharing, Susan. Vinegar is like a miracle
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been wanting to give this a try. do you use the orange infused vinegar for all the uses you listed….glass, laundry etc or straight vinegar ?
I use it for cleaning, but I have not used it as fabric softener yet. I’m going to try it soon, though!
I have used vinegar for fabric softener but I add sauve conitioner. It gives it a nice smell and so far hasn’t left any reidue on my clothers.
Do you use the citrus vinegar in your laundry or only white? I use white vinegar for the rinse but am finally getting around to making citrus this week and was curious. I don’t really miss the extra smells from laundry products, but sometimes the boys’ things come out still a little funky smelling, especially if they sat in the dirty pile too long.
Ah, looks like the question’s been asked. Sorry.
Hi Mitzi! Looks like you found your answer. Just in case – I haven’t not used the citrus vinegar in the wash. I don’t think it will cause any problems, but I just haven’t tried it yet. I have found the best way to add scent to the laundry naturally is to follow the ideas I’ve written about in this post – Natural Laundry Softener and Fragrance.
My other curiosity is if this works instead of apple cider vinegar for hair rinse… Not that I have trouble with it, but still…orange is yummier.
I’m not sure because I’ve never tried white vinegar on my hair since apple cider vinegar has always worked so well for me. It’s worth a shot, though! I’d love to hear from you to know if it worked well. You could infuse the orange peels in the apple cider vinegar. I think it’d be better, though, to infuse herbs in the ACV instead as I know that would really complement the fragrance.
I’ve found some yummy sounding hair rinse recipes and am trying to grow chammomile this year, so may try that in the ACV then. I’ll probably use this mostly for cleaning, anyway.
Hey Sara! I’ve been using some of your products, like your vinegar, your lotion, laundry detergent, and a bunch of others. I just started up a YouTube channel, and I’m uploading a video featuring Citrus-Infused Vinegar, and I mentioned you and stuck a link at the bottom! Thought I oughta let you know.. and I’ll probably be doing some others
This is fun!
Oh wow, cool! I’ll go check it out! Thanks for letting me know and linking back.