Like a lot of people these days, I'm allergic to the standard household cleaners. The unnatural fragrances will trigger a migraine that has me hiding under the covers with earplugs in. As I'd seen a number of natural cleaners out on the web so I tried my hand at making my own;This is what I came up with.
You can change out the citrus & spice to suit your own nose. Orange & cloves; Lime & a few drops of rosemary essential oil; Lemon & cinnamon; it's up to you =)The more citrus peel & spice you use, the less vinegary smell you have. I found that Ocean State Job Lots & The Christmas Tree Shop have jars of clove & cinnamon sticks for under $1 - perfect for using in this recipe! If you don't have these stores near you, try one of the dollar stores.
I have a fairly big clamp style jar that holds about 1 quart of liquid. I simply peeled a lime leftover from New Year's; a couple oranges and a grapefruit; tossed them into the jar; added a cup or so of whole cloves and a couple cinnamon sticks, cracked up a bit. Then I poured white vinegar over to cover and stuck it under my kitchen sink for a month.
After it had "aged" for a few weeks; I pulled it out and strained the liquid into a spray bottle. It worked fabulous on the greasy exhaust fan hood & stovetop; gets my counters super clean and everything smells fabulous!
Gallon of white vinegar $2.39; used about 1/4 so that's .80
1 lime - .25
2 oranges - 1.00
1 grapefruit - .99
1/2 (1.75oz) jar cloves - .45
2 cinnamon sticks - .20
That yields about a quart of all natural cleaner for $3.39!
You can add some *GSE (grapefruit seed extract) for antimicrobial properties as well. I use that diluted in water to clean my fruits & veggies that I can't grow myself to be sure they're completely clean.
*Read more about GSE here:
www.livestrong.com/article/127592-grapefruit-seed-extract-uses/
and here:
www.naturallysafecleaning.com/gse.aspx