52 Weeks to Toxin Free Homemade Wood Furniture Cleaner

Funny thing when I was perusing Facebook the other day, I follow a page called Grow Food Not Lawns and one of the memes they posted was that we want natural ingredients in our cleaners but our foods we are okay with artificial or chemical ingredients. The meme said something to the effect of a wood furniture cleaner made with real lemons, but our foods are flavored with artificial lemon. We have become of backwards society in that we look more to convenience and ease than what is really good for us. Yes, the argument is that the items are cheap and inexpensive, but what about the overall cost to our health? Is the immediate savings really worth the long term price? With all the being said here we are for another week in our 52 Weeks to Toxin Free, where I am pleased to share the easiest and most lovely homemade wood furniture cleaner.Three-fourths of my home is covered in wood. No lie. I have hardwood floors, wood end tables, coffee tables, dining table, book cases, cabinets. Needless to say we have an abundance of wood. (Insert 12 year old sexual innuendo joke here.) So with all of our furniture being of an organic material I like to keep these surfaces clean and without using any chemicals. My kids are all over these surfaces too and when they touch them I like to be confident they are not touching a surface that is laden with a chemical to keep it clean or inhaling any leftover pollutants in the air.

I too was guilty of buying the canister spray of furniture polish and cleaner. I grew up using Pledge. When I learned what was contained in these canisters, the ingredients and the harm that is passed off as “safe” I knew I needed to find a better solution, albeit cheap too. When we incorporated essential oils in our home and in our lives, I found that using commercial cleaners with surfactants were just harsh and carried high level of perfumes and toxins that I could no longer tolerate. With that, I began to seek out alternatives in our home as you read before with my DIY Soft Scrub, glass and surface cleaner.

The beauty of this recipe is that this is everything you have in your own home, most likely in your pantry. Here is your ingredients and supplies list to get you on your way to make your own homemade wood furniture and floor cleaner:

• Spray bottle, glass or metal if using any essential oils
• Vinegar (white or apple cider), if no vinegar, lemon juice is a great alternative
• Olive Oil (no flavored oil, just plain oil)
• Whisk
• Pyrex measuring cup
• Essential oils: your choice of lemon, orange, grapefruit, tangerine, tea tree, rosemary, Thieves

In your Pyrex measuring cup, measure out your oil and add your essential oils at this time for proper disbursement. Trying to add the oils later will be a bit troublesome as they do not mix well with the mixture and could float to the top. Slowly pour in your vinegar. Using your whisk begin to blend. Once blended, pour into your spray bottle. I used a really adorable stainless steel spray bottle that I found at the dollar store.

The great thing about this recipe is you can whip it up in an instant and you are not scrambling looking for something to clean your wood furniture and or floors. The money savings is also tremendous, because with each of these ingredients and their total cost with the spray bottle being $15, I can make over 30 bottles of homemade wood furniture cleaner and polish. That total cost is less than $.50 (50 cents) per bottle of cleaner which is cheaper than your dollar store brands without all the harsh chemicals, surfactants and toxins. What do you use as a chemical free alternative to clean your home? Furniture? Would you consider this inexpensive, homemade wood furniture cleaner alternative in your home for a week, I would love to hear what you use or how well it works for you in your home.