I recently started cleaning my act up when it comes to what products I’m using to clean my house. The main driver of this is my 2-year-old son who loves to help me around the house. I would love for him to clean with me, but I don’t want him around all of the chemicals. So, I decided the chemicals had to go!
One of the first products I decided to make was an all-purpose cleaner. I found a Pinterest recipe online for a DIY cleaner that simply recommended combing baking soda and vinegar together in a spray bottle. Unfortunately, I took this horrible advice which led to the caulking disintegrating on my shower glass door. So I thought I’d share what my research confirmed: Combining baking soda and vinegar together creates a chemical compound that essentially neutralizes the solution, causing the two to cancel each other out. In summary, you are wasting your money if you are combing these two to do any sort of cleaning at all.
They are both powerful, natural cleaning products on their own. I recommend using them separately. Baking soda is a great degreaser and can be very useful when combined with water to make a paste. Vinegar is a wonderful deodorizer and can also cut through hard water stains. It’s very acidic so just be mindful of what surfaces you do use it on and that you are properly rinsing it off after your surface is clean.
This was a mind-blowing discovery for me as I’ve always heard people raving about mixing baking soda and vinegar together to create a powerhouse cleaning agent. Turns out, science does not support using the two together if you want an effective cleaning mixture. Had you heard of this before today?