This one has me saying, “What have I been doing all this time?! WHHYYY!?!?!?!”
I’ve been making many of my cleaning supplies for a few years now but sometimes, the thought of taking the extra step to measure the ingredients is enough to make me want to grab Scrubbing Bubbles at the grocery. Even when you get into the habit of routines, the little steps can sometimes be overwhelming when you have so many other routines going on in your home.
Enter the Sharpie on the bottle.
This isn’t a breakthrough invention. In fact, many of you probably already do this and I realize I’m pretty late to the game. But for those of you who are a little slow like me, let me enlighten you so you also can stop with the hassle of measuring out your ingredients and just get straight to pouring. Next time you make your bottle of cleaner, mark the levels with a Sharpie and write which ingredient you fill to which line. Even though I’m sure not a ton of time was saved, doing half the pours has made me not dread making a new bottle of cleaner when I need it. You can do this with any cleaning recipe you use.
A few other quick DIY cleaning tips I’ve learned:
– Don’t buy the clear, glass bottles. Use the blue or amber glass ones instead as some ingredients lose their effectiveness if exposed to light. Or if you can’t find any of those bottles secondhand, use a plastic bottle that had a previous purpose, clean it out really well and then screw a spray top onto it.
– You don’t need to buy special microfiber cleaning cloths to clean your spaces. Just use old rags.
– I know a lot of folks are using Dr. Bronner’s Sal’s Suds for their cleaning recipes. You might want to give those a shot if you’re just starting down the DIY cleaning path or if you’re wanting to switch things up a bit.
– When it says “water” it is water that has been boiled and then cooled to minimize bacteria growth in the bottle.
– “Vinegar” is distilled white
– And “vodka” is the cheapest store brand I can find because I’m not wasting the good stuff on my sinks, toilets and kitchen counters.
Hope this is as helpful to you as it is to me!
I’ve got a new-to-me yogurt maker off eBay being delivered on Saturday so you can imagine the wild and crazy plans I have for this weekend! Since I have tried and failed with every other way of making yogurt without a machine, I’ve got my fingers crossed this time. Happy Friday!