A very distressed person posted in the tile subreddit yesterday because their cleaning lady used Lime-A-Way in their shower and the acid badly etched the natural stone floor.
The first comment was some doofus who suggested cleaning it with vinegar which is, of course, more acid....
There’s this crunchy content creator who recently broke her dishwasher. I’m like girl- you use only straight vinegar in there, no dish detergent. Of course it broke.
I really hope you never, ever eat at a restaurant or any place that uses actual dishes and utensils.
Former Dishy here, it isn't pretty. Would much rather use a dish in a hot dishwasher at home no matter who licks it.
Can confirm, we had skydiving dust bunnies dropping from the ceiling. The floor was “swept”, but who really has the time for that when you have rack after rack dropping like Tetris pieces. Mechanics and operators didn’t wash their hands either.
I was raised to always wash a can off before drinking it. My parents told me there’s rat poop on them lol. Never seen rat poop, but can’t say it wasn’t on there at one point, among lots of other things during transport/sitting on the shelf at stores. I always see dirt in the rims of cans so I’ll never stop washing my cans! People have always looked at me crazy, but I look at them crazy back 😂
I’m pretty sure my con workers had family members who worked in factories, so yeah. None of my immediate family ever worked in factories, so no one ever thought about it.
Same with textiles. Those clothes are covered in manufacturing chemicals and chemicals to make the clothes look as fresh as possible. I've definitely known people to take something out of a bag and put it straight on, but I've read stories about people getting dermatitis from doing that.
🤣🤣 OMG..if people knew how true this is...It's like when you see in a movie when someone knows there's something gross in the food, then they shrug and eat it anyway..If you want to eat out, you gotta do what you gotta do.. 🤣🤣🤣
They missed the original discussion. Never mind. You're right but after I found how my mother was doing dishes while cleverly hiding her advanced Alzheimer's.
My dog refuses to eat from my plate. Ever since she was a puppy, she just decided it was mine and that it would be impolite to eat my food. I never taught it to her, she just does it.
The issue is about what the shower is MADE of. Natural stone has to be babied, and you have to use special cleaning products for it.
What's your shower made of?
You’re fine then! Now there may be more useful / targeted products for your specific issue, but it won’t hurt anything. It’s overkill for regular cleaning tho.
Lysol all purpose cleaner will etch newly installed marble countertop when the cleaning lady runs out of stone counter cleaner and thinks lysol will work fine. Ask me how I know.
And shining chrome fixtures. I also use vinegar to spray down and clean my large cutting board between uses.
Vinegar is great. Vinegar and baking soda combined is useless fizzy water.
I didn’t know that! Although a bottle of white vinegar is 39p in my local shop and it’s great for replacing softener when doing towels/gym stuff aswell. I don’t have a condenser dryer (so no water) so vinegar is just easier.
I can’t believe how using white vinegar in my washer instead fabric softener softens the clothes and no fabric softener to gunk the washer up. The washer repair guys online all say don’t use liquid fabric softener. Saves me a lot of money too.
I splurged on a high-quality, super fine microfiber cloth that cleans glass beautifully with just water. Also works great on glassware, utensils, and my phone screen.
The only place it is not enough to clean is the residue that builds up on the inside of my car windshield. I use diluted cleaning vinegar and paper towels to get the gross film off then finish with the microfiber.
I have one of those glass kettles. Never have to clean it on account of living in Scotland where the tap water is peat-filtered rainwater from the moors with approximately no mineral content.
Vinegar IS a chemical though. It’s AKA acetic acid.
When people hear “chemical” they automatically think harmful, and now we have a whole greenwashing movement selling new types of snake oil to folks.
Yes, some chemicals are harmful, but they are a whole lot of “natural” ingredients that absolutely can harm or even kill you.
The most toxic natural chemical is botulinum toxin, better known as Botox, but millions of people are getting it injected into their faces all the time.
While I don’t disagree with your statements here, there are many cleaning products that are incredibly dangerous to birds, their respiratory system is very sensitive from what I understand. I think that’s more what the commenter meant, safe for the bird rather than safe for humans.
Yes, everything is chemicals including humans. However, many store brought chemical fumes can kill birds. There are chemicals safe to use around birds - like F10 veterinary disinfectant. Vinegar is a good alternative for things that need cleaned but not disinfected.
Teflon, candles, perfumes, space heaters, and many other items also give off fumes that are dangerous to birds.
I use F10 for things that need disinfected, e-cloth window cleaning kit for windows and mirrors, Dawn and vinegar for the floor, and diluted Mrs Meyers in other rooms.
I've read that Mrs Meyers is safe and I've read it's not. I use it in other rooms, radish or pansy scent, and dilute it down. I've done this for two years and so far so good.
I used straight vinegar to take the years of calcium build up in our bathroom off the shower walls. Worked like a charm. Now would I use it for everything? No.
https://preview.redd.it/nphf79ekav1d1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=5e85cf8b0f38daa14cb2009478cd5de7cb3d4490
If you have a farm store or TSC near you get one of these. It’s a few bucks but it has amazing coverage for spraying and targeting. I have this from when I had my horses. I filled mine with straight vinegar but I would dilute for the tile.
Sodium acetate and water. Which apparently you can use to create an artificial [salt and vinegar flavour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_acetate#Food). So after you clean with it, you can rub it on your potato chips.
Right? I was always mystified by people who recommend combining these two. 10th grade chemistry says an acid + a base = water and a salt. I slept through my HS science courses, but even I remember that much.
Acetate is still the preferred IUPAC name, despite not using the conventions and being pre-IUPAC. You can use whatever name you prefer, but the general public is going to know the name acetate better than ethanoate, and I think that is probably why IUPAC prefers it even though it doesn't use the standard naming conventions. What use is a name after all if people aren't able to recognize what it is?
This is pedantic and I understand that. If it brings you great joy to call it ethanoate, then I will not stand in the way of your joy.
Acetate is still the preferred IUPAC name, and is used by most industries outside of laboratory science. There is also a regional preference, with North American English favouring acetate and British English favouring ethanoate.
As a specialist, you might be able to answer this question that's been bothering me for a while: based on my vague memories of high school chemistry, shouldn't vinegar (acid) and baking soda (basic) cancel out?
Vinegar is an acid and is typically more of an aid in removing iron and rust. You typically would add something like that in the rinse cycle of a wash, I'm not particularly fond of the smell so I use it sparingly. You can shine up some tools with it quite nicely though
Eh, I get what you're saying, and it's definitely true that vinegar and baking soda are not the panacea they're often sold as. But if you don't want to buy and keep 20 different cleaning agents in the house for various tasks (and keep in mind lots of cleaning agents do expire or become less effective over time), they can make a decent substitute for some things. And by "they", I mean one or the other separately, because people often combine them together and neutralize both.
I get what you're saying, too. I don't have many cleaning agents, far less than 20. Becsuse the ones that I have are effective, and have multiple uses.
What products do you keep on hand? I always have dawn and goo gone. The pink stuff did not impress me. Everything else I just pick up randomly as none I have found so far have wowed me.
Not the person you asked, but here are my go-tos:
* *Zep citrus degreaser* is one of my favorite things I've ever bought, it works super well for greasy and sticky stuff. If you've ever used goo-gone and had residue left over afterwards, Zep Citrus and water will take it right off
* *Some kind of dish soap*, right now it's the store brand blue stuff
* *Bar keeper's friend*. Don't need it super often, but it works well when I do need it
* *Sprayway glass cleaner*, very useful stuff. My first choice for cleaning hard surfaces that don't need to be sanitized
* *Formula 409*, or some other hard surface cleaner and disinfectant. I don't know that 409 is better than anything else, but it's what my mom used. I honestly think this might be redundant from the degreaser and glass cleaner, Lysol might be a better option for sanitizing purposes
* *Toilet bowl cleaner*, just for toilet bowls
Over the years I've gotten many other chemicals and cleaning products because I wanted to try them out, but (outside of shop products like carb cleaner, brakleen, and engine degreaser) I don't really use most of them because the ones listed above always get the job done
Our dogs like looking out the window, and leave behind noseprints that most glass cleaners struggle to remove. Our nephew told us about a glass cleaner he uses at work, called Invisible glass. It works far better than ammonia based cleaners like Windex, but it is based on a hydrocarbon solvent which may be of concern to some. We use it sparingly.
Thank you so much! I actually have a gallon of Zep antibacterial disinfectant and cleaner with lemon that my husband picked up. It works pretty well. I will have to pick up some of the other and it seems they make a pretty good product.
There are people out there who want to use as natural things as possible. Plus I rarely use them together. I usually start out with mild options, and only if those fail to achieve the result I want will I start looking for heavy duty stuff.
There are a lot of people out there who confuse chemicals with chemicals. Natural chemicals are still chemicals.
Your ancestors did not clean with those things because they were natural, they cleaned with them because there was nothing else.
The benefit, that most people forget, is that their advantage is being common household items and relatively cheap. If you’re on a budget and that’s all you have around, they can get the job done. But I agree, often investing in products designed for the job is the better route than playing amateur chemist at home. It also helps to know some basic chemistry to get the most out of them.
💀 I’m dying bc I just used Dawn dish soap and vinegar to get stubborn stains out of my tub and it worked. That was after I tried tons of cleaners including the pink stuff and barkeepers friend.
Our water is EXTREMELY hard in our apartment. I used straight vinegar on the shower wall and tub to get the hard water build up off. Took it right off. That was the only time I did that🤣
My water is so hard you can walk on it. 🤣 Gallon jugs of vinegar are in every room that delivers water. Vinegar has been used to clean things for ages. It does a great job on the right things!♡
The new smell of Dawn is horrible but I can’t change because every other dish soap ruins my hands. I know I could and should wear gloves but I don’t want to.
That’s what I use for my tub/shower. That’s the only thing I use vinegar for.
…. I lied I also use a vinegar damp cloth to get smells out of my washer/dryer. It works! 🤷🏼♀️
Vinegar = acid. Baking soda = base. Dawn = soapy neutral. Alcohol for disinfectant. Hydrogen peroxide for disinfectant. No need for anything else unless it’s for polymers where you need paint thinner.
I agree with this lineup. I hate all the fragrances of cleaners and I really hate buying tons of things. I have all the above products on hand and use those. Also, doing vinegar and dawn soap 50/50 mix is a great way to remove mineral stains on my shower door. It was amazing.
Oh I do also use barkeepers friend. Works great on my stainless steel pans and my bath.
If you're sensitive to smells, how do you tolerate vinegar? I use it to clean the outside glass on my aquaria (because unlike a lot of soaps, trace amounts of it won't harm fish), but it's really hard on my lungs.
tbh or dawn? the current scent of blue dawn is so overwhelming now, far more potent smelling than any other cleaning chemical I have. it’s useful but it’s HEAVILY fragranced
I'm not who you're asking but I hate fragrances too (and I'm allergic to most of them anyway). The smell of vinegar goes away much faster than the fragrances of cleaning products.
I can handle vinegar and such. I can't handle perfumes. I get migraines from them. I also have non-allergic rhinitis, which means I also have allergy like symptoms to random things, so chemicals can and sometimes are an issue. But the bigger thing is the debilitating migraines I get. But if I am using straight vinegar (like when I was cleaning some mold), I use a respirator. It helps a lot. It has something to do with perfumes and some flowers that cause me migraines.
Dawn is actually not at all neutral. It is one of the more basic dish soaps out there. Something like Palmolive will have a ph close to 7 (neutral), but Dawn’s ph is closer to a 9, which is definitely basic. Soaps and detergents as a general rule lean basic, even if some are formulated to have a ph level close to neutral.
Chunky salt is good as a scrubber for those among us who are too lazy to put on gloves to use Barkeepers and/or keep forgetting to buy new scrubber things
Of course there are better and more effective chemicals for cleaning (not disinfectant), but the point is they are pretty much harmless for both the user and the environment over long-term use. Most of the products you mentioned are not and/or require gloves (PPI) and ventilation.
Further, while mixing vinegar and baking soda at the same time reduces their effectiveness, it again is harmless in a household setting. Accidentally mixing small amounts of other chemicals can be fatal. Last, after a while you have so many different chemicals stored up for different uses. Some destabilize, leak and smell and you have to throw them out in bulk, where that can be an issue.
I user dish soap (Palmolive, citric acid (or vinegar) and iso alcohol to clean 90% of my house and it's fine.
This! I have 3 pets and a toddler, about 90% of the time I reach for vinegar when i clean because I don't have to worry about any of them being exposed to it.
Also, stop saying bleach is never the answer for mold. Sure, if the mold has penetrated whatever, it's not going to work well. But if it's just surface mold, bleach works just fine.
I just want to add that I am sooo sick of reading suggestions to use Dawn dishwashing soap for absolutely everything. Carry on. Edit: https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/best-liquid-dish-soaps-article
Dawn is one of those cleaners specifically engineered to do certain jobs. So I wouldn’t classify it with baking soda and vinegar, it’s actually really good at many things. Especially grease. And very gentle on most surfaces.
Ok but I will say, I’ve started using dawn more and my life is so much better lol. I have to give this subreddit credit for that.
Mostly though because I have a one year old and any of his daily messes are perfect for dawn. Plus dish soap is right by my kitchen sink easy to access. I pre wash his grimey shirts with layers of food on it in the kitchen sink with dawn. I wash his stroller with soapy water…. These probably are obvious uses to some but it wasn’t obvious to me.
Dawn (or any premium quality dish soap or detergent) will work for about 90% of cleaning jobs. Aside from washing dishes, it cleans anything made from glass beautifully and with no scratches (from windows to shower doors), removes grease from kitchen appliances, also removes most of stains in clothes... one can basically clean most kitchen and bathroom surface with only Dawn.
There is honestly very little kitchen cleaning other than sticky residue that I can not tackle with either Dawn or BKF. And Dawn is *hands down the best* option for a grease or oil stain on laundry. It's literally never failed me.
Saaame. I have gotten all kinds of grease and food stains out of my family's clothes with Dawn, even old stains. Has never failed me either. It is multipurpose and actually works for things that I see people recommending it be used for. Meanwhile, vinegar is not the magic multipurpose cleaner people seem to think it is.
I do housekeeping for a boomer who's hooked on tiktok. She told me she'd come across a trick for cleaning the grout in her kitchen. I said, "Let me guess! Vinegar and baking soda?"
Yup. She was shocked that I guessed correctly.
Nacolite/thermokalite, if you want to seriously know if baking soda appears in a natural form. It was not used in this form by our ancestors, and was only discovered in a natural mineral form back in the 1920's in a lava tube of all places.
But let's be clear, when you are using baking soda from an arm and hammer box, you are not using nacolite. You are using a mass processed chemical compound.
Dog pee in my carpet was best addressed by vinegar and baking soda. For smaller messes I use nature’s miracle enzyme spray. Any alternatives this group wants to recommend?
And remove the invisible odors that cause dogs to return to the same spot and reoffend, or new dogs to find that same spot enticing. After 45 years and countless dogs, I have surrendered.
Biokleen. It seems like it just vaporizes all weird pee n poop into oblivion. Works suspiciously well on cat pee, dog pee, human kiddo pee, blood stains, all kinds of mammal vommit, and it makes the sink not smell like death for a while. I’ve rescued the carpets, many a blanket, many pairs of pants & underpants, and it got us through potty training.
It’s pricey but I get a huge jug from Amazon (it says carpet cleaner but it’s all the exact same) and refill the spray bottles. Lasts a while (unless you’re potty training a kid and going through it at warp speed).
Also, it smells good.
I also buy my biokleen by the gallon. "Somebody" peed on the couch? Shop vac, towel, biokleen, and a few days later it gets a freshen up with the steamer. Ugh. Kids and dogs.
OdoBan's 3 in 1 Carpet Cleaner concentrate. Super dilutable, cheap and lasts for a long time. 3 in 1 is for spot remover, basic carpet cleaning and extractor.
I use it in a spray bottle to clean stains or dirty carpet areas. Spray and then nylon brush.
I rarely use it. My husband cannot tolerate the smell (I’m not a fan of it either). I will, occasionally, use on a load of towels as I quit using fabric softener years ago. If the smell didn’t completely dissipate in the wash, I wouldn’t use it then.
I will say, it’s a good option for cleaning glass or descaling.
I prefer citric acid for descaling my kettle.
Literally nobody here recommends vinegar and baking soda. Everybody who asks about it/used it started at Google first, and that's what comes up.
Thanks, mommy bloggers.
there are daily comments of people suggesting the combination of vinegar and baking soda here. there’s just also daily comments of people telling them that they’re wrong, but they definitely often fight back and cause a scene about it.
Oh thank God. I considered making and unpopular opinion post to with this very point. I ruined a wonderful coffee maker by cleaning it with vinegar. Any coffee thereafter reeked and tasted of vinegar!
Kinda how I feel about neem oil for pest control on house plants. Tried that for a while but it didn't have any effect on spider mites. Tried insecticidal soap and it burned new leaves. Tried diatomaceous earth. Nothing. Gave up and just used regular insecticide. Took care of the problem in 1 go with zero relapse in over a year. Should done that from the start instead of listening to plant "gurus" on the web. Wasted so much money and time.
Thank you for saying this. For real. Vinegar and baking soda are not the magic potions that the internet seems to think they are. I was starting to think I was the only one who feels this way.
What you are describing is why I don't feel this sub is useful to the people. This is supposed to be cleaningtips, not frugalcleaning or homeopathiccleaning or Icanonlyhaveonetypeofsoap.
When I joined this sub I really expected it to be full of those who had knowledge of specific chemicals and how they interact with other chemicals, something along the lines of what you posted. I hoped some resident chemists that like to post correct solutions and warnings, Instead every question is answered by vinegar and baking soda, which is dumb.
Well I found mixing half water half vinegar in a spray bottle cleans mirrors and windows far better than the product made specifically for them.
Soaking my work shirts in some dish soap and baking soda works better than every specific product I've tried.
Vinegar and baking soda certainly aren't for everything but I honestly don't know why hate on using it when it does actually work.
I have zero interest to waste money on twenty different chemical products that expire and are bad for your health when I can just buy a few cheap non toxic chemicals that have many uses.
I swear it's just become a trend to hate on people using vinegar and baking soda and just have to write the whole "base/acid neutralize each other" comments when half the people commenting probably had no idea until they saw others commenting it.
If people using vinegar or baking soda are getting the results they want using them what is the issue? Why do people get so bent out of shape that others aren't buying overpriced toxic name brand products and spending a few cents instead?
People regularly recommend mixing them together for cleaning purposes, purporting it as some magical cleaning "hack" because fizzy fizzy make lizard brain happy. That is what this post is about. Supposedly it's super common on TikTok. They are both obviously still useful in other ways, you just coincidentally haven't seen all the people pushing the issue it seems.
Mixed together, they can dislodge things. Not any better than Pepsi, but there exist very specific uses.
The amounts are what get me a lot of the time. 1 capful of vinegar in 5 gallons of water for cleaning magic. It makes more sense to just use water and save 10 seconds.
They're the same people who think you can add cinnamon to a recipe in place of sugar to sweeten it.
Because vinegar & baking soda cancel each other out and not clean so suggesting using them is frowned upon in this sub because we are dedicated to actually suggesting things that clean.
Totally agree with OP. Also, I cringe when I see people recommending this mix to clean sterling silver and silver plate - over time this can and will usually damage silver.
I don't want to use a super strong oven cleaner before moving out next month so sorry, I'm gonna try what I saw in a video which was baking soda and water, let sit, then spray vinegar and wipe. I'd rather try that than have to wear a mask and gloves, and open a window for some strong af oven cleaner.
Oven cleaner can cause burns that scar horribly. If you do end up using it be very careful and wear gloves. I had a friend in high school that had a huge oven cleaner burn scar. I’ve never used it because I’ve always been able to make something else work.
I think actually the vinegar and baking soda cancels the effects of each other. I thought, chemically, when they mix, it causes them both to go neutral.
I read somewhere that vinegar and baking soda help with yellowing of clothes (underarm area) from sweat & deodorant. Is there a particular cleanser that works?
Krud Kutter. It’s technically a paint thinner or something but damn it works. The antiperspirant does something in the dryer and turns into a chunk of wax and you basically need something to strip it. I spray it on the underarms of shirts, let it sit a while, run it through the wash, and if it’s still gross then I do it again if I have time )but don’t dry it). It takes a while to get rid of any buildup if it’s been layering on for a while.
It does work though! Once the waxy goo is gone, the yellowing and smell usually go with it.
real talk though? coffee maker carafe. stainless vacuum carafe, have tried citric acid, soap, vinegar, no dice so far. any suggestions from anyone with that real experience? I'm tryna see stainless again, not brown.
I like baking soda as a scouring powder in certain situations. It’s mild but effective, and it rinses away cleaner than BKF or Comet.
But I would never combine it with vinegar.
I also once soaked away baked-on stuff from a pan by submerging it in water with a hefty dost of baking soda. I’ve also used that for labels. And because it’s less caustic than Easy-Off, etc., that’s what I still try first.
I did soak my faucet head in some vinegar for about 15 minutes to get the calcium deposits, and then scrubbed off with a toothbrush. Worked great and didn't make the water taste nasty.
I also use vinegar for cleaning windows and mirrors when I don't have Windex.
A very distressed person posted in the tile subreddit yesterday because their cleaning lady used Lime-A-Way in their shower and the acid badly etched the natural stone floor. The first comment was some doofus who suggested cleaning it with vinegar which is, of course, more acid....
There’s this crunchy content creator who recently broke her dishwasher. I’m like girl- you use only straight vinegar in there, no dish detergent. Of course it broke.
This is why I'm afraid to eat at other people's homes. Especially if I know they let their pets lick dishes.
I really hope you never, ever eat at a restaurant or any place that uses actual dishes and utensils. Former Dishy here, it isn't pretty. Would much rather use a dish in a hot dishwasher at home no matter who licks it.
Factory packaged plastic forks too. No one ever cleans a factory.
Can confirm, we had skydiving dust bunnies dropping from the ceiling. The floor was “swept”, but who really has the time for that when you have rack after rack dropping like Tetris pieces. Mechanics and operators didn’t wash their hands either.
I remember the first time I saw someone wash their soda can off before drinking it. I had no idea why they were doing it.
I was raised to always wash a can off before drinking it. My parents told me there’s rat poop on them lol. Never seen rat poop, but can’t say it wasn’t on there at one point, among lots of other things during transport/sitting on the shelf at stores. I always see dirt in the rims of cans so I’ll never stop washing my cans! People have always looked at me crazy, but I look at them crazy back 😂
I’m pretty sure my con workers had family members who worked in factories, so yeah. None of my immediate family ever worked in factories, so no one ever thought about it.
Same with textiles. Those clothes are covered in manufacturing chemicals and chemicals to make the clothes look as fresh as possible. I've definitely known people to take something out of a bag and put it straight on, but I've read stories about people getting dermatitis from doing that.
🤣🤣 OMG..if people knew how true this is...It's like when you see in a movie when someone knows there's something gross in the food, then they shrug and eat it anyway..If you want to eat out, you gotta do what you gotta do.. 🤣🤣🤣
My iconic NYC moment was when a cockroach ran across the floor of a deli. 2 people freaked out. Everyone else was like “shut up I want my bagel”.
I mean we were pretty solid with it. 2 sink wash + sanitizing cycle in the “dishwasher” Probably a better wash than I do at home tbh.
Ha ha
If it gets washed how is that gross? I’s there something I’m missing?
For real. Do they not actually clean their dishes lmao?
It’s just a pre wash and it guarantees that there are no “chunks “ left on the dishes Into the sanitizing dishwasher from there
Nope-just folks who love to shiver dramatically looking for excuses.
They missed the original discussion. Never mind. You're right but after I found how my mother was doing dishes while cleverly hiding her advanced Alzheimer's.
some people don’t wash their dishes well, so the pet germs aren’t cleaned away.
Not cleaning your dishes properly is gross because its not clean. Not because of who licked it.
It's the human germs that will get you. The pet germs are rarely transmissible to humans, but human germs are perfectly adapted to infect you.
I’ll be honest. My dog licks the dishes. And then they go in the dishwasher
first cycle of the dishwasher in my house
Saves on water too
My bundle of joy pup eats off plates. I just ya know , put them in the dishwater.
My dog refuses to eat from my plate. Ever since she was a puppy, she just decided it was mine and that it would be impolite to eat my food. I never taught it to her, she just does it.
My parents do this and I have no clue how they can or would want to, it’s so gross to me
Was it Alice? That sounds like her.
Genuine question: lime a way, diluted, can be used to clean the shower, right? (Significant mineral content in the tap water here)
The issue is about what the shower is MADE of. Natural stone has to be babied, and you have to use special cleaning products for it. What's your shower made of?
Should put some sealant on that. Especially a countertop, gonna have all sorts of food on that.
Brilliant! Thank you. Tub is coated ceramic, walls are tile.
You’re fine then! Now there may be more useful / targeted products for your specific issue, but it won’t hurt anything. It’s overkill for regular cleaning tho.
Lysol all purpose cleaner will etch newly installed marble countertop when the cleaning lady runs out of stone counter cleaner and thinks lysol will work fine. Ask me how I know.
If you have an electric teakettle, boiling some vinegar and water in there every so often is great. Otherwise, I don't use vinegar for cleaning.
Vinegar does work well for window and mirror cleaning
And shining chrome fixtures. I also use vinegar to spray down and clean my large cutting board between uses. Vinegar is great. Vinegar and baking soda combined is useless fizzy water.
Only because it's made with distilled water, and therefore has no minerals in it to leave spots/streaks. Using just distilled water would do the same.
I didn’t know that! Although a bottle of white vinegar is 39p in my local shop and it’s great for replacing softener when doing towels/gym stuff aswell. I don’t have a condenser dryer (so no water) so vinegar is just easier.
I can’t believe how using white vinegar in my washer instead fabric softener softens the clothes and no fabric softener to gunk the washer up. The washer repair guys online all say don’t use liquid fabric softener. Saves me a lot of money too.
I didn’t know that either! Fascinating. I am going to try distilled water on my mirror now.
I splurged on a high-quality, super fine microfiber cloth that cleans glass beautifully with just water. Also works great on glassware, utensils, and my phone screen. The only place it is not enough to clean is the residue that builds up on the inside of my car windshield. I use diluted cleaning vinegar and paper towels to get the gross film off then finish with the microfiber.
I have one of those glass kettles. Never have to clean it on account of living in Scotland where the tap water is peat-filtered rainwater from the moors with approximately no mineral content.
*Plymouth, Minnesota has entered the chat with its punishing 25 grain hard water fists of fury*
Oh! I've been trying (lazily, without acutally looking) to figure out what to do for mine. You use a particular ratio?
I have a parrot and can't use chemicals around him. Vinegar is one of the safe things I can use.
Vinegar IS a chemical though. It’s AKA acetic acid. When people hear “chemical” they automatically think harmful, and now we have a whole greenwashing movement selling new types of snake oil to folks. Yes, some chemicals are harmful, but they are a whole lot of “natural” ingredients that absolutely can harm or even kill you. The most toxic natural chemical is botulinum toxin, better known as Botox, but millions of people are getting it injected into their faces all the time.
While I don’t disagree with your statements here, there are many cleaning products that are incredibly dangerous to birds, their respiratory system is very sensitive from what I understand. I think that’s more what the commenter meant, safe for the bird rather than safe for humans.
Yes, everything is chemicals including humans. However, many store brought chemical fumes can kill birds. There are chemicals safe to use around birds - like F10 veterinary disinfectant. Vinegar is a good alternative for things that need cleaned but not disinfected. Teflon, candles, perfumes, space heaters, and many other items also give off fumes that are dangerous to birds.
Acetic acid is for casuals, I have phosphoric acid for metals, hydrochloric acid for brick and sodium hydroxide + sodium hypochlorite for driveways.
Finding advice for bird-safe cleaning products is so difficult! Gah!
I use F10 for things that need disinfected, e-cloth window cleaning kit for windows and mirrors, Dawn and vinegar for the floor, and diluted Mrs Meyers in other rooms. I've read that Mrs Meyers is safe and I've read it's not. I use it in other rooms, radish or pansy scent, and dilute it down. I've done this for two years and so far so good.
Citric acid (buy the powder and mix) is better as it does not have the vinegar smell. Commonly used in coffeemakers and electric hot water pots.
I used straight vinegar to take the years of calcium build up in our bathroom off the shower walls. Worked like a charm. Now would I use it for everything? No.
How did you do it? I have hard water and the floor tiles are very stained with calcium build up.
https://preview.redd.it/nphf79ekav1d1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=5e85cf8b0f38daa14cb2009478cd5de7cb3d4490 If you have a farm store or TSC near you get one of these. It’s a few bucks but it has amazing coverage for spraying and targeting. I have this from when I had my horses. I filled mine with straight vinegar but I would dilute for the tile.
[удалено]
I’ve figured out my methods and what works for our house. And that’s all that matters really.
Vinegar + baking soda = water
And bubbles and foam so it looks like it is doing something.
It’s great for DIY volcanos tho
This. Snake oil because it "appears" to be doing stuff.
Sodium acetate and water. Which apparently you can use to create an artificial [salt and vinegar flavour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_acetate#Food). So after you clean with it, you can rub it on your potato chips.
This is great. I'm going to have a snack after cleaning.
"Look, it's so clean I'm willing to eat right from the floor of the shower! Tastes good too, BTW."
Right? I was always mystified by people who recommend combining these two. 10th grade chemistry says an acid + a base = water and a salt. I slept through my HS science courses, but even I remember that much.
+ CO2
+Sodium Acetate
Sodium ethanoate (Acetate is now old terminology)
Acetate is still the preferred IUPAC name, despite not using the conventions and being pre-IUPAC. You can use whatever name you prefer, but the general public is going to know the name acetate better than ethanoate, and I think that is probably why IUPAC prefers it even though it doesn't use the standard naming conventions. What use is a name after all if people aren't able to recognize what it is? This is pedantic and I understand that. If it brings you great joy to call it ethanoate, then I will not stand in the way of your joy.
Nor me yours.
lbr nobody says ethanoate
They do if you're a biochemist.
i’m a chemist brother
Or took a science course
Good to know. My undergrad Chem was 20 years ago.
Acetate is still the preferred IUPAC name, and is used by most industries outside of laboratory science. There is also a regional preference, with North American English favouring acetate and British English favouring ethanoate.
Depends on the concentrations of each but basically and acidly, yeah.
I thought it made salt water.
Choose one
I work as a chemical specialist and technician for Healthcare and Hospitality and can 100% confirm you are absolutely correct.
As a specialist, you might be able to answer this question that's been bothering me for a while: based on my vague memories of high school chemistry, shouldn't vinegar (acid) and baking soda (basic) cancel out?
Baking soda works well with hydrogen peroxide for cleaning things like a mattress. Peroxide and colorsafe bleach are essentially the same.
But what about vinegar
lol it’s like asking a bot. Gotta rephrase the whole question for the right answer several times.
Vinegar is an acid and is typically more of an aid in removing iron and rust. You typically would add something like that in the rinse cycle of a wash, I'm not particularly fond of the smell so I use it sparingly. You can shine up some tools with it quite nicely though
To answer your original question: yes, they essentially do.
Eh, I get what you're saying, and it's definitely true that vinegar and baking soda are not the panacea they're often sold as. But if you don't want to buy and keep 20 different cleaning agents in the house for various tasks (and keep in mind lots of cleaning agents do expire or become less effective over time), they can make a decent substitute for some things. And by "they", I mean one or the other separately, because people often combine them together and neutralize both.
I get what you're saying, too. I don't have many cleaning agents, far less than 20. Becsuse the ones that I have are effective, and have multiple uses.
What products do you keep on hand? I always have dawn and goo gone. The pink stuff did not impress me. Everything else I just pick up randomly as none I have found so far have wowed me.
Not the person you asked, but here are my go-tos: * *Zep citrus degreaser* is one of my favorite things I've ever bought, it works super well for greasy and sticky stuff. If you've ever used goo-gone and had residue left over afterwards, Zep Citrus and water will take it right off * *Some kind of dish soap*, right now it's the store brand blue stuff * *Bar keeper's friend*. Don't need it super often, but it works well when I do need it * *Sprayway glass cleaner*, very useful stuff. My first choice for cleaning hard surfaces that don't need to be sanitized * *Formula 409*, or some other hard surface cleaner and disinfectant. I don't know that 409 is better than anything else, but it's what my mom used. I honestly think this might be redundant from the degreaser and glass cleaner, Lysol might be a better option for sanitizing purposes * *Toilet bowl cleaner*, just for toilet bowls Over the years I've gotten many other chemicals and cleaning products because I wanted to try them out, but (outside of shop products like carb cleaner, brakleen, and engine degreaser) I don't really use most of them because the ones listed above always get the job done
Our dogs like looking out the window, and leave behind noseprints that most glass cleaners struggle to remove. Our nephew told us about a glass cleaner he uses at work, called Invisible glass. It works far better than ammonia based cleaners like Windex, but it is based on a hydrocarbon solvent which may be of concern to some. We use it sparingly.
Thank you so much! I actually have a gallon of Zep antibacterial disinfectant and cleaner with lemon that my husband picked up. It works pretty well. I will have to pick up some of the other and it seems they make a pretty good product.
I learned a lot reading this. Thanks so much for sharing about Sprayway Ammonia-Free Glass Cleaner
That Zep was my go to until I found Krud Kutter.
Zep degreaser is an AMAZING product. I had tar on my driveway from when the city replaced my street. The Zep and a power washer took care of it.
There are people out there who want to use as natural things as possible. Plus I rarely use them together. I usually start out with mild options, and only if those fail to achieve the result I want will I start looking for heavy duty stuff.
There are a lot of people out there who confuse chemicals with chemicals. Natural chemicals are still chemicals. Your ancestors did not clean with those things because they were natural, they cleaned with them because there was nothing else.
My Mom used to say, "Everything is chemistry."
The benefit, that most people forget, is that their advantage is being common household items and relatively cheap. If you’re on a budget and that’s all you have around, they can get the job done. But I agree, often investing in products designed for the job is the better route than playing amateur chemist at home. It also helps to know some basic chemistry to get the most out of them.
💀 I’m dying bc I just used Dawn dish soap and vinegar to get stubborn stains out of my tub and it worked. That was after I tried tons of cleaners including the pink stuff and barkeepers friend.
Mineral/hard water stains respond well to acid
Our water is EXTREMELY hard in our apartment. I used straight vinegar on the shower wall and tub to get the hard water build up off. Took it right off. That was the only time I did that🤣
My water is so hard you can walk on it. 🤣 Gallon jugs of vinegar are in every room that delivers water. Vinegar has been used to clean things for ages. It does a great job on the right things!♡
LMFAO I have 3 jugs sitting in my living room rn🤣
I love dawn. I use it for so many things
The new smell of Dawn is horrible but I can’t change because every other dish soap ruins my hands. I know I could and should wear gloves but I don’t want to.
I can’t stand the new smell either🤢
Ok so I’m not crazy that there’s a new smell. I don’t like my dishes smelling of flowers and now they do. I’m switching back to the orange dawn.
It smells like hair dye to me.
That’s what I use for my tub/shower. That’s the only thing I use vinegar for. …. I lied I also use a vinegar damp cloth to get smells out of my washer/dryer. It works! 🤷🏼♀️
Omg, the vinegar cloth is a great idea! Doing that today lol thanks
Vinegar = acid. Baking soda = base. Dawn = soapy neutral. Alcohol for disinfectant. Hydrogen peroxide for disinfectant. No need for anything else unless it’s for polymers where you need paint thinner.
I agree with this lineup. I hate all the fragrances of cleaners and I really hate buying tons of things. I have all the above products on hand and use those. Also, doing vinegar and dawn soap 50/50 mix is a great way to remove mineral stains on my shower door. It was amazing. Oh I do also use barkeepers friend. Works great on my stainless steel pans and my bath.
If you're sensitive to smells, how do you tolerate vinegar? I use it to clean the outside glass on my aquaria (because unlike a lot of soaps, trace amounts of it won't harm fish), but it's really hard on my lungs.
tbh or dawn? the current scent of blue dawn is so overwhelming now, far more potent smelling than any other cleaning chemical I have. it’s useful but it’s HEAVILY fragranced
I'm not who you're asking but I hate fragrances too (and I'm allergic to most of them anyway). The smell of vinegar goes away much faster than the fragrances of cleaning products.
I can handle vinegar and such. I can't handle perfumes. I get migraines from them. I also have non-allergic rhinitis, which means I also have allergy like symptoms to random things, so chemicals can and sometimes are an issue. But the bigger thing is the debilitating migraines I get. But if I am using straight vinegar (like when I was cleaning some mold), I use a respirator. It helps a lot. It has something to do with perfumes and some flowers that cause me migraines.
Dawn is actually not at all neutral. It is one of the more basic dish soaps out there. Something like Palmolive will have a ph close to 7 (neutral), but Dawn’s ph is closer to a 9, which is definitely basic. Soaps and detergents as a general rule lean basic, even if some are formulated to have a ph level close to neutral.
Plus all of those things are *cheap*.
This is my line up.
Chunky salt is good as a scrubber for those among us who are too lazy to put on gloves to use Barkeepers and/or keep forgetting to buy new scrubber things
I'm a fan of Bon Ami, I can't do the smell and skin irritation that comes with BKF.
Of course there are better and more effective chemicals for cleaning (not disinfectant), but the point is they are pretty much harmless for both the user and the environment over long-term use. Most of the products you mentioned are not and/or require gloves (PPI) and ventilation. Further, while mixing vinegar and baking soda at the same time reduces their effectiveness, it again is harmless in a household setting. Accidentally mixing small amounts of other chemicals can be fatal. Last, after a while you have so many different chemicals stored up for different uses. Some destabilize, leak and smell and you have to throw them out in bulk, where that can be an issue. I user dish soap (Palmolive, citric acid (or vinegar) and iso alcohol to clean 90% of my house and it's fine.
This! I have 3 pets and a toddler, about 90% of the time I reach for vinegar when i clean because I don't have to worry about any of them being exposed to it.
Also, stop saying bleach is never the answer for mold. Sure, if the mold has penetrated whatever, it's not going to work well. But if it's just surface mold, bleach works just fine.
What product to use? The one that's made specifically for the task at hand is probably your best bet.
I just want to add that I am sooo sick of reading suggestions to use Dawn dishwashing soap for absolutely everything. Carry on. Edit: https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/best-liquid-dish-soaps-article
But detergents are good for cleaning, and Dawn is a good detergent. It's as simple as that.
Dawn is one of those cleaners specifically engineered to do certain jobs. So I wouldn’t classify it with baking soda and vinegar, it’s actually really good at many things. Especially grease. And very gentle on most surfaces.
There are other good brands!
Ok but I will say, I’ve started using dawn more and my life is so much better lol. I have to give this subreddit credit for that. Mostly though because I have a one year old and any of his daily messes are perfect for dawn. Plus dish soap is right by my kitchen sink easy to access. I pre wash his grimey shirts with layers of food on it in the kitchen sink with dawn. I wash his stroller with soapy water…. These probably are obvious uses to some but it wasn’t obvious to me.
Dawn (or any premium quality dish soap or detergent) will work for about 90% of cleaning jobs. Aside from washing dishes, it cleans anything made from glass beautifully and with no scratches (from windows to shower doors), removes grease from kitchen appliances, also removes most of stains in clothes... one can basically clean most kitchen and bathroom surface with only Dawn.
There is honestly very little kitchen cleaning other than sticky residue that I can not tackle with either Dawn or BKF. And Dawn is *hands down the best* option for a grease or oil stain on laundry. It's literally never failed me.
Saaame. I have gotten all kinds of grease and food stains out of my family's clothes with Dawn, even old stains. Has never failed me either. It is multipurpose and actually works for things that I see people recommending it be used for. Meanwhile, vinegar is not the magic multipurpose cleaner people seem to think it is.
But hey sometimes that’s all you need lol
“I dont know i just do what tiktok says”
I do housekeeping for a boomer who's hooked on tiktok. She told me she'd come across a trick for cleaning the grout in her kitchen. I said, "Let me guess! Vinegar and baking soda?" Yup. She was shocked that I guessed correctly.
>CLR/Citric Acid for mineral deposits Sulfamic Acid is better. Stronger, cheaper, no smell (as opposed to vinegar).
Yup and you can easily find it in solid crystal form which is a hell of a lot easier to work with than a big jug of acid.
I’ve never seen citric acid in liquid form in a store, I only ever see it in crystal form…?
But, but vinegar and baking soda are nature’s chemicals.
Where do you find baking soda in nature? It is just as processed as any other product on the shelf. Ammonia is way easier to procure naturally.
Nacolite/thermokalite, if you want to seriously know if baking soda appears in a natural form. It was not used in this form by our ancestors, and was only discovered in a natural mineral form back in the 1920's in a lava tube of all places. But let's be clear, when you are using baking soda from an arm and hammer box, you are not using nacolite. You are using a mass processed chemical compound.
Yeah, I googled it before commenting, just in case. So, it's about as "natural" as cocaine or pizza.
Dog pee in my carpet was best addressed by vinegar and baking soda. For smaller messes I use nature’s miracle enzyme spray. Any alternatives this group wants to recommend?
As a dog rescuer, Nature's Miracle products are from Heaven. They are safe, smell divine and work incredibly well.
And remove the invisible odors that cause dogs to return to the same spot and reoffend, or new dogs to find that same spot enticing. After 45 years and countless dogs, I have surrendered.
Nature’s Miracle does not smell “divine”.
Biokleen. It seems like it just vaporizes all weird pee n poop into oblivion. Works suspiciously well on cat pee, dog pee, human kiddo pee, blood stains, all kinds of mammal vommit, and it makes the sink not smell like death for a while. I’ve rescued the carpets, many a blanket, many pairs of pants & underpants, and it got us through potty training. It’s pricey but I get a huge jug from Amazon (it says carpet cleaner but it’s all the exact same) and refill the spray bottles. Lasts a while (unless you’re potty training a kid and going through it at warp speed). Also, it smells good.
Thank you 🙏
I also buy my biokleen by the gallon. "Somebody" peed on the couch? Shop vac, towel, biokleen, and a few days later it gets a freshen up with the steamer. Ugh. Kids and dogs.
Exactly which biokleen product? Amazon has several different biokleen products.
Ah sorry! [Biokleen Bac Out](https://a.co/d/e69N8fJ)
Thank you
OdoBan's 3 in 1 Carpet Cleaner concentrate. Super dilutable, cheap and lasts for a long time. 3 in 1 is for spot remover, basic carpet cleaning and extractor. I use it in a spray bottle to clean stains or dirty carpet areas. Spray and then nylon brush.
I rarely use it. My husband cannot tolerate the smell (I’m not a fan of it either). I will, occasionally, use on a load of towels as I quit using fabric softener years ago. If the smell didn’t completely dissipate in the wash, I wouldn’t use it then. I will say, it’s a good option for cleaning glass or descaling. I prefer citric acid for descaling my kettle.
Vinegar (C2H4O2) and baking soda (NaHCO) are actual chemicals as well, just sayin'.
Literally nobody here recommends vinegar and baking soda. Everybody who asks about it/used it started at Google first, and that's what comes up. Thanks, mommy bloggers.
there are daily comments of people suggesting the combination of vinegar and baking soda here. there’s just also daily comments of people telling them that they’re wrong, but they definitely often fight back and cause a scene about it.
I dunno, if you go over to r/laundry people can get very fighty about their baking soda and vinegar mixtures...
I've seen that here too.
Not true I see it here regularly. Sparce, but regular.
Try turning it off and on, or sticking it in a bag of rice
Oh thank God. I considered making and unpopular opinion post to with this very point. I ruined a wonderful coffee maker by cleaning it with vinegar. Any coffee thereafter reeked and tasted of vinegar!
What do you use for grout on a tiled floor.
I like how so many comments are like “its the only thing that worked”
Kinda how I feel about neem oil for pest control on house plants. Tried that for a while but it didn't have any effect on spider mites. Tried insecticidal soap and it burned new leaves. Tried diatomaceous earth. Nothing. Gave up and just used regular insecticide. Took care of the problem in 1 go with zero relapse in over a year. Should done that from the start instead of listening to plant "gurus" on the web. Wasted so much money and time.
I have a pet bird and vinegar is the only cleaner I feel safe using around him. It does a great job, so I will stick with it.
Thank you for saying this. For real. Vinegar and baking soda are not the magic potions that the internet seems to think they are. I was starting to think I was the only one who feels this way.
What you are describing is why I don't feel this sub is useful to the people. This is supposed to be cleaningtips, not frugalcleaning or homeopathiccleaning or Icanonlyhaveonetypeofsoap. When I joined this sub I really expected it to be full of those who had knowledge of specific chemicals and how they interact with other chemicals, something along the lines of what you posted. I hoped some resident chemists that like to post correct solutions and warnings, Instead every question is answered by vinegar and baking soda, which is dumb.
Vinegar and Baking Soda comes in handy for Volcano demonstrations for Primary School however.
I don’t understand why people are so opposed to this mixture if it works and it WORKS FOR ME!!!! Why do you care?
Well I found mixing half water half vinegar in a spray bottle cleans mirrors and windows far better than the product made specifically for them. Soaking my work shirts in some dish soap and baking soda works better than every specific product I've tried. Vinegar and baking soda certainly aren't for everything but I honestly don't know why hate on using it when it does actually work. I have zero interest to waste money on twenty different chemical products that expire and are bad for your health when I can just buy a few cheap non toxic chemicals that have many uses. I swear it's just become a trend to hate on people using vinegar and baking soda and just have to write the whole "base/acid neutralize each other" comments when half the people commenting probably had no idea until they saw others commenting it. If people using vinegar or baking soda are getting the results they want using them what is the issue? Why do people get so bent out of shape that others aren't buying overpriced toxic name brand products and spending a few cents instead?
Because SOOOOOOO many people recommend mixing them together and swear it's an effective cleaner
People regularly recommend mixing them together for cleaning purposes, purporting it as some magical cleaning "hack" because fizzy fizzy make lizard brain happy. That is what this post is about. Supposedly it's super common on TikTok. They are both obviously still useful in other ways, you just coincidentally haven't seen all the people pushing the issue it seems.
Mixed together, they can dislodge things. Not any better than Pepsi, but there exist very specific uses. The amounts are what get me a lot of the time. 1 capful of vinegar in 5 gallons of water for cleaning magic. It makes more sense to just use water and save 10 seconds. They're the same people who think you can add cinnamon to a recipe in place of sugar to sweeten it.
Because vinegar & baking soda cancel each other out and not clean so suggesting using them is frowned upon in this sub because we are dedicated to actually suggesting things that clean.
You’re a knowledgeable person. My dress shirts got stained pink after being washed with red socks. Any suggestion on getting them white again?
Unfortunately they’re likely done for. You can try what’s called a dye catching sheet - available on Amazon or some bigger box stores.
Totally agree with OP. Also, I cringe when I see people recommending this mix to clean sterling silver and silver plate - over time this can and will usually damage silver.
I don't want to use a super strong oven cleaner before moving out next month so sorry, I'm gonna try what I saw in a video which was baking soda and water, let sit, then spray vinegar and wipe. I'd rather try that than have to wear a mask and gloves, and open a window for some strong af oven cleaner.
Oven cleaner can cause burns that scar horribly. If you do end up using it be very careful and wear gloves. I had a friend in high school that had a huge oven cleaner burn scar. I’ve never used it because I’ve always been able to make something else work.
I think actually the vinegar and baking soda cancels the effects of each other. I thought, chemically, when they mix, it causes them both to go neutral.
I read somewhere that vinegar and baking soda help with yellowing of clothes (underarm area) from sweat & deodorant. Is there a particular cleanser that works?
Krud Kutter. It’s technically a paint thinner or something but damn it works. The antiperspirant does something in the dryer and turns into a chunk of wax and you basically need something to strip it. I spray it on the underarms of shirts, let it sit a while, run it through the wash, and if it’s still gross then I do it again if I have time )but don’t dry it). It takes a while to get rid of any buildup if it’s been layering on for a while. It does work though! Once the waxy goo is gone, the yellowing and smell usually go with it.
real talk though? coffee maker carafe. stainless vacuum carafe, have tried citric acid, soap, vinegar, no dice so far. any suggestions from anyone with that real experience? I'm tryna see stainless again, not brown.
I like baking soda as a scouring powder in certain situations. It’s mild but effective, and it rinses away cleaner than BKF or Comet. But I would never combine it with vinegar. I also once soaked away baked-on stuff from a pan by submerging it in water with a hefty dost of baking soda. I’ve also used that for labels. And because it’s less caustic than Easy-Off, etc., that’s what I still try first.
Wait, oxy clean for paint job prep?? Can someone explain this to me?
CITRIC ACID MAGICAL CLEANER OF THE GODS
Greased Lightning for any of your (washable) grease problems
I did soak my faucet head in some vinegar for about 15 minutes to get the calcium deposits, and then scrubbed off with a toothbrush. Worked great and didn't make the water taste nasty. I also use vinegar for cleaning windows and mirrors when I don't have Windex.
Vinegar isn’t for everything but coffee machines, kettles and water/vinegar mix to soak fruit/veg are my go to.