Reducing the amount of toxins that you absorb or ingest into your body is important for optimum health and overall well-being. It’s really difficult to achieve, however, given the amount chemicals that we come into contact with on a daily basis.

From the automobile emissions that we inhale by just venturing outdoors, to the chemicals we encounter in our “fresh” produce (if they’re not organic), we are constantly being introduced to toxins in unawares.

Thankfully, one of the areas that we have more control over the amount of chemical content is in our own homes.

In this blog post, I am going to give you 10 ideas for making your own natural, eco-friendly household cleaners.

These recipes are fairly easy to follow. Read on!

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1.) Natural fruit and vegetable spray

Make use of good old fashioned clear, distilled vinegar! It’s very inexpensive and helps to further remove dirt and residual pesticides from the skin of your produce, along with rinsing in clean water. Here's how I suggest you use vinegar to clean your produce.

Purchase an inexpensive spray bottle and fill it with undiluted distilled vinegar. Spray the vinegar onto your produce and let it sit for about 5 minutes to loosen the impurities.

Then either massage the veggies/fruit with your hand, or lightly scrub them with an inexpensive vegetable brush to completely loosen the unwanted residue.

Rinse and enjoy your clean produce!

2.) Make your own eco-friendly air freshener.

Instead of opting for room freshening sprays made with artificial fragrances (read, chemicals), just make your own!

Using the same type of spray bottle that you used to make your homemade vegetable cleaning spray (in #1 above), just fill an empty spray bottle with about 8 ounces (1 cup) of filtered or bottled water.

Add 5-7 drops of your favorite essential oil. Be sure to adjust your spray bottle setting to “mist” vs. a “stream-like” spray. Shake vigorously to blend the contents. Then, spray a few spritzes into the air of your room of choice.

Because this recipe does not call for chemicals that keep the essential oils and water blended together, you will need to shake and blend the ingredients before each use.

This solution is eco-friendly and does not add harmful propellants to your space. (1)

A few essential oils to try that smell wonderful are lemon essential oil, grapefruit essential oil, and pine essential oil.

Be sure to check with your doctor before using any essential oil as a room spray

3.) Remove sticker residue from non-porous surfaces

Do you have a sticky film on your glass or tile surfaces? Just apply a bit of olive oil or coconut oil to the sticky area and allow it to sit for about 5 minutes.

Then, massage that area with your finger tips loosen the sticky substance and wipe it clean with a disposable paper towel.

Using a paper towel keeps you from embedding the sticky substance into one of your reusable wash cloths because gummy substances can be difficult to wash out of fabric.

4.) Is your metal zippers tuck?

OK. So this isn’t really a cleaning tip, but it’s a useful tip, nevertheless. Sometimes metal zippers get stuck, especially if it is an older zipper. And it can be mildly frustrating.

All you need to do is take an old wax candle and rub it up and down the full length of the zipper to create a waxy film along the entire path. Then, move the zipper up and down a few times to fully coat it from top to bottom for a free flowing zipper.

Voila! Zipper unstuck!

5.) Create your own natural disinfectant.

Did you know that tea tree oil reportedly has disinfecting properties? (2) Well, try this one at home.

Get your trusty, inexpensive spray bottle out and add about 10 ounces of filtered water. Add 8-10 drops of pure tea tree essential oil, and a few drops of natural dish detergent to the water.

Shake to blend all of the ingredients, then spray on the areas that you want to disinfect.

You can use this solution to clean your floors and counter top surfaces in your bathroom and kitchen.

Tip: This is the water filter that I use to filter the water that I consume. It not only provides me with a healthier drinking water source, but it also gives me a more non-toxic base from which to create my home cooked meals and my homemade green cleaning solutions.

You can choose to have it installed under your kitchen sink, or sit it on your kitchen counter top and dispense your filtered water from there.

6.) Gum stuck on an item of clothing?

Just take an ice cube from your freezer and rub it across the gummy area to freeze and harden the gum. While the gum is frozen solid, pick off the gum fragments bit bit, until you have completely removed it from your item of clothing.

You may have to rub the ice cube over the gummy area several times to prevent it from softening again until you have removed all of the gum.

7.) Eco-friendly floor cleaner

Here is a simple vinegar cleaning solution that you can use as a natural floor cleaner for your home.

Add 1/3 cup of distilled vinegar to 1 bucket of water (approximately 2 gallons). Combine with 10-12 drops of either pure peppermint or lemon essential oil.

Blend by swirling a paint stick or wooden ruler through the oil and water solution. Then take a clean sponge mop, dip it into your herbal mixture, wring out the excess water, and mop over your floor to remove dirt and refresh your floors.

Your house will have a natural, crisp, clean scent without the use of harmful cleaning chemicals!

8.) Foul odor coming from the kitchen sink garbage disposal?

Instead of throwing away the peels from your oranges or lemons, grind them up in your garbage disposal.

Allow a light trickle of water to run into your garbage disposal while grinding up your citrus fruit peels. This will help to distribute the essential oils from the peels to better coat the mechanics of the garbage disposal for a more thorough deodorizing process.

Citrus essential oils have strong antiseptic properties, too (3). They deodorize as well as disinfect, leaving you with a naturally cleaner garbage disposal.

9.) Bugs in your kitchen cabinets?

If you store your rice, beans or any other dry, staple food products in your kitchen drawers or cabinets, there is a possibility that they will attract unwanted visitors like grain bugs or ants.

A highly effective and inexpensive way to keep the pesky little critters at bay is by placing a few dried bay leaves (no pun intended) in your food storage areas such as your kitchen drawers and shelves of your pantry.

Bay leaves make excellent natural insect repellents (4). Chances are, you already stock bay leaves as part of your seasoning supply, so why not get double benefits from them?

Plus, you will have no concerns about contaminating your food storage areas with chemical pesticides. Safer for you, safer for your family. And as I mentioned, they're inexpensive.

10.) Got ink or fruit-stained hands?

Lemon juice to the rescue!

Squeeze the juice from a fresh lemon onto your hands and massage it into the stained area. Rinse clean.

Word of caution, though….don’t apply lemon juice to nicks or cuts on the skin because it will sting terribly!

Reportedly, lemon juice has natural bleaching properties due to its citric acid content. (5) The longer you leave the lemon juice on the discolored area, the lighter the stain will become.

Your hands will not only “come clean”, but they will smell delightful, too!

Key takeaways for eco-friendly cleaning.

We can all take baby steps toward reducing toxins in our lives. I highly emphasize “baby steps” because there are so many wonderful, healthy and beneficial uses for plants, fruits, and vegetables that you simply will not learn them all in one day, or one week, or even one year!

Attempting to make a complete change to natural living in a few months of time would be overwhelming! Again…take baby steps toward better wellness and self-care.

The more we learn about ways to benefit from the healing and nurturing properties of plant-based living, and the more we incorporate that wisdom into our lives, the cleaner our world becomes…..at least our own individual worlds. And that's really all we can control.