Homemade Disinfecting Wipes

I have to admit, most of my 'green' lifestyle changes do not come about from a desire to be more environmentally conscious. Most of them come from wanting to save money, not save the planet! Although here recently, I've had lots of thoughts on the very subject of being 'green'. God has given us this beautiful earth to take care of. His creation is immaculate and breathtaking. So, I am all for taking care of the beauty God has given!

One of the 'convenience' cleaning items that I haven't been able to get rid of has been disinfecting wipes). How great is it to just be able to grab the container and wipe down your toilets and sinks!? I use vinegar and water for most of my general cleaning but a toilet to me just needs something extra, right? So, I started doing a search on homemade disinfecting wipes and found this blog post. I decided to make up some of my own! It {almost} worked great! I cleaned my toilets, sinks and counters with my homemade wipes yesterday. I think my only problem was that it left water spots on everything. I think I may have had them too wet. I'm going to try to use them next time by squeezing the excess solition out and see how that works.

Here is what you need:




Squares of cloth - I used one of the Hubs's t-shirts & got about 16 large wipes
water
castile soap
Tea Tree Oil*
white vinegar
some kind of container

To mix mine up, I used a cup of water. I added about a tsp castile soap, 1/8 tsp tea tree oil and 1/4 cup vinegar. I think this was a pretty good amount, though I might go easier on the soap and tea tree oil (literally just 3-4 drops) and add a 1/2 cup of vinegar. I think that might help with the spots too. I'll try to update on my next batch. It took me a whole maybe 5 minutes and that includes cutting up the t-shirt!

This is a much safer and more frugal way to disinfect!

Castile soap can be pricey, but it is highly concentrated. A little goes a long way! I can see my 32 oz bottle lasting a long time. I got the 'Unscented Baby-Mild Dr Bronner's" castile soap at Target but I have heard that you can get it cheaper on Amazon, so my next bottle will be bought with my other Amazon items! I've seen a lot of different things you can use castile soap for online so I'm excited to see what else I can use it for!

* Care should be taken when handling and storing tea tree oil, as with other cleaners. It can be toxic at full strength! It's safe when diluted and has great antibacterial and antiviral properties!


(This picture annoys me... because you can tell the lid isn't closed all the way. As you can also tell, I didn't fold them up fancy. I just dumped them in. Works for me!)


On my list next is homemade swiffer pads made from burp cloths! :)