We go through lemons like crazy in our house! Probably a 2 pound bag every week. From lemon water or lemonade, to soaking grains for recipes we just love them!
I usually just compost my lemon rinds or put them down the disposal to make my sink smell fresh, but a few months ago I saw a few ideas on Pinterest for using lemon peels for making cleaners!
I started playing around with a few of the ideas I saw and this is my take on what I have found I have been really liking it! I absolutely love that this cleaner is virtually FREE. Seriously leftover lemon peels, white vinegar, and water? It doesn’t get much more cost effective than that – and the kicker is that this cleaner WORKS.
As you can imagine my kitchen is a disaster daily – and this takes care of it all from grease to berry stains. I add about 30 drops of tea tree oil
I have been using this cleaner for just over 2 months and have been really happy with the versatility and effectiveness. It took me a few recipes to figure out just the right combo, and this is what I have been loving!
- 1 quart mason jar (or similar)
- Leftover lemon peels enough to fill the jar (I just keep a mason jar in the fridge and toss them in as I go)
- White vinegar to fill the jar
- Water
- Optional 20-40 drops tea tree, lavender, eucalyptus, or rosemary oil for antibacterial properties
- Jam pack the mason jar with the lemon peels and pour the white vinegar over the top. Squish everything down in as far as you can – you want the peels covered completely.
- Put the top on your jar and leave the jar in your cupboard to soak for 3 weeks. Just put a mark on your jar with some tape so you know what day you started it.
- Strain out the lemon peels (you can throw them down your disposal to freshen up your sink!) and pour the lemon/vinegar concentrate into a 32 ounce spray bottle.
- Add water to fill the bottle the rest of the way, add the optional essential oils, put your spray top on, and you are good to go!
Tips:
- Obviously as with any new cleaner, test out an inconspicuous spot on your surface to be sure it will be ok to use on it!
- You really can’t smell the vinegar at all if you are worried about that. The lemons concentrate it so well – and once it drys/evaporates all you smell is lemons!
- If you have smaller empty bottles just half the concentrate between the bottles. This is a good concentration so try to keep with about 1 cup of the concentrate to around 1 ½ to 2 cups of the water.
- Get your essential oils at your local grocer or HERE
– a lot of times for me amazon is much cheaper!
- Use empty spray bottles from whatever spray you have been using. I found mine in the cleaning section at our local grocer and really liked the spray on them. HERE
is a 32 ounce bottle option if you can’t find any in a store by you!
YOUR TURN!
What is your favorite Pinterest cleaning tip you have learned?? Let me now how your lemon cleaner turns out!
This post was shared at Holistic Squid’s Party Wave Wednesday, and Real Food Forager’s Fat Tuesday!