Everyone is looking for ways to save money today and this is a good practice. Whatever you save you don’t have to earn and that means you can purchase something else that you need or save some money for when we get older.
Having a background in chemistry having attended a technical school and studied in college I can tell you that most of the chemicals we use as cleaners are just about the same product but packaged in a different container. Yes there are some differences but for the most part soaps all have the same properties.
In addition you will find that most disinfectant products contain three common chemicals.. Ammonia, Chlorine or Alcohol. Chlorine is the most common and is found in most bathroom cleaners. Ammonia is often found in glass cleaners and Alcohol is found in products such as freebreeze which is used to kill bacteria that causes odors.
Well we already have large quantities of chlorine in the bleach containers we buy for clothes washing. The amount of bleach you should use in your homemade cleaner depends on what it will be used for. If you are cleaning your bathroom shower mat I suggest you use a 50/50 mix of bleach and water. If you are cleaning other surfaces that won’t be harmed by bleach like the toilet or floors then you can have a 15% bleach to water solution and add a tiny bit of soap to help clean.
If you are cleaning other general surfaces I suggest that you do what I do. When you have a liquid soap whether it is your washing machine soap for clothes, hand soap or dish washing soap I suggest that you place a small amount of water in the container and shake it real hard. You will find that the container still contains a lot of soap. Let the suds settle for a while and then empty the liquid into an empty gallon sized clothes washing soap container.
This general soap can then be used throughout your home. It is pretty amazing how much soap will remain on the sides of containers that you can get out by rinsing them and how little soap is required to simulate the same power found in spray bottles that you buy at the store.
How do you store homemade spray soap?
Well although this how to is basically against buying store bought cleaners they are the best source for your spray bottles. I suggest that you purchase containers that are labeled as containing bleach even if you will use them just for straight soap.
The containers made for soaps containing bleach have better internal parts to stand up to the caustic reaction bleach has on rubber parts. Have you ever bought a spray cleaner and after a while it stops working? This is because the rubber parts in the spray head have been damaged by the cleaner. Manufactures understand this and if a spray chemical includes bleach or chlorine then they use better rubber parts.
You can also look for containers that have specialty heads. Some spray soaps have a small screen that flips over the spray hole to cause a foam. You spray the soap normally and its is a liquid spray but if you flip down the screen it causes it to foam up. This is good for places like bathtubs and toilets where you want the chemicals to stick to the side a little longer.
I like to store it in a liquid clothes washing container. Normally I like to buy the largest liquid soap containers and then I keep a smaller container that I fill for use at the washing machine. When the big container is “empty” I pour my old homemade soap solution into it to wash the container clean.
When I need straight spray soap I pour it directly into the spray bottle and when i need a bathroom cleaner I first add a couple ounces of bleach.
I keep three spray bottles.
One is straight soap.
One is soap and bleach
and one is straight bleach.
This gets me through about 80% of my cleaning needs however there are specialty products that I will buy just for cleaning special things.
Although I could use and do use straight soap for carpet spots I also keep a container of dollar store carpet soap that works well for organic stains. I don’t know exactly why I do this but it is probably because I am paranoid about causing damage to the carpet. I really shouldn’t be especially if I use straight soap or even just water.
Also like I said I get my spray containers from buying cheap spray chemicals at the dollar store that contain bleach. I will buy maybe 5 containers of store bought spray cleaner a year and I always save the containers. I would guess i probably have about 5 empty containers ready to replace ones that stop working however I normally end up just exchanging the sprayhead and tossing the bottle.. I probably should just save the spray heads but once in a while i have a special job like spraying weed killer where I know I will end up tossing the bottle.