Spring Cleaning Inspiration
The first hints of spring are in the air, and that peculiar urge is returning… the urge to clean! Maybe it’s because the spring sunlight shows all the dirt that was comfortably hidden during the winter darkness. Or maybe it’s the vibrant energy that starts to run through us again, calling us to get up, clear out, and make way for new experiences and new things to come into our lives. Whatever the reason, I do find myself tackling those messy jobs that I’ve so easily avoided over the past months, like…cleaning the oven.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve done this, not only because it’s messy, but also because I really, really dislike the commercial, toxic oven cleaners, and I haven’t known about an effective alternative. I want to use natural cleaning recipes. Well, we recently stumbled onto a book called The Naturally Clean Home by Karyn Siegel-Maier and have found it full of useful natural cleaning recipes for making your own natural, herbal cleaners.
At first I found this natural cleaning recipes book a bit overwhelming as I looked at the ingredient lists and saw so many things I didn’t have around my house, especially a wide array of herbal essential oils. But, the idea of making my own natural cleaners inspired me so much that I kept looking at it. So I went through and thought about which natural cleaning recipes I would like to make: oven cleaner, sink scrubber, toilet bowl cleaner, floor cleaner, carpet cleaner… I found that with a fairly small list of ingredients, all easily available from Mountain Rose Herbs (where you can also get the book), I could make quite a few useful things.
Essential Oil Cleaning Toolkit
I recommend starting your natural cleaning supply shelf for your herbal natural cleaning recipes with a bottle of Castile Soap, some straight borax, baking soda, vinegar, and the following essential oils: thyme, pine, lavender, tea tree, and a citrus oil like lemon or orange. You can make quite an array of products with these ingredients, and then you can add others as you increase the herbal cleaning products you like to make. Now, instead of a shelf full of store bought cleaning products in bottles, my shelf is stocked with these ingredients, and it’s usually a fairly quick process to mix up the cleaner I need just before tackling the job at hand.
I spilled part of my quiche onto the bottom of my oven just before baking it the other night, and so the subject of your herbal branch was chosen, as I finally had to face this least favorite of my chores. So, here’s a natural cleaning recipe for a first herbal cleaning product to get you started: Karyn calls this “Serious Oven-Cleaning Formula,” and I found that it worked great!
Homemade Oven Cleaner with Essential Oils
Start by combining the salt, washing soda, and baking soda in a bowl. Add just enough water to make a paste. I found it took about a cup of water to make a spreadable paste, though the author recommends less than 1⁄4 cup.
Next, remove the racks from your oven and preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Turn off the oven and spread the paste on the oven walls with a sponge or cloth and allow it to set for 20 to 30 minutes.
Combine the vinegar and essential oils in a spray bottle and shake well. Spray the oven walls and wipe clean. I did find that this takes more elbow grease than is necessary with a commercial oven cleaner, and I did follow the author’s recommendation and used some fine steel wool for scrubbing. (I so prefer the scrubbing to the toxic feel and smell of oven cleaner, that this was not a problem for me.)
Finally, rinse well, and admire your nice, clean oven walls! (Yes, there are still some marks there, but this is an OLD oven that looked worse than this when we bought the house.)
We’ve made several other natural cleaning recipes and cleaners from this book and have been very happy with the results. My neighbor has been using the carpet cleaner to clean up after her pets and has found that her only complaint is that it cleans the carpet so well that she notices how dirty the rest of the carpet is after using it. I’ve made the sink scrubber, toilet bowl cleaner, and floor cleaner all with positive results. Perhaps we will share more recipes with you in future articles, and if this inspires you, I highly recommend Karyn’s useful little book for herbal natural cleaning recipes.
Why Choose Natural Oven Cleaners?
Before I knew better, I tried to use a store-bought spray to clean my oven. It said it was supposed to be fume free. But it definitely wasn’t. Just a few minutes after spraying this Easy Off “fume free” oven cleaner, my throat felt sore and scratchy, it was a little hard to breathe, my eyes started watering, and multiple air purifiers in my home kicked into max red-alert level. It definitely wasn’t fume free.
So I researched and experimented in coming up with my own natural oven cleaner. And what I’ve thankfully discovered is that there’s no need to use harsh chemicals to clean your oven. You can get your oven sparkling clean using just baking soda, essential oils, and vinegar. It’s surprising how well these common household ingredients can cut through oven grease, baked on food, and spills. But they really do. It’s natural, fume-free, non-toxic, and it gets my oven sparkling clean.
Citrus oils, pine, and tea tree essential oils are the best powerful cleaners for the tough job of cleaning grease and crusty, baked-on food from ovens. Just check out these before and after photos from my oven door. It’s embarrassing, but on the right is what my oven door looked like before cleaning. It was pretty much black from grease and burnt-on food spills and splatters. And on the left is what my oven door looked like after cleaning with baking soda, vinegar, lemon essential oil, pine essential oil, and a little elbow grease. I don’t know if you can tell but the after oven door is spotless. It’s completely clean. You can see right through to my black and white granite kitchen floor. It’s so clean, you can even see the reflection of my kitchen cabinets at the top of the photo. Amazing!
How to Make Your Own Natural Oven Cleaner
Here’s how you do it…
First, get the essential ingredients:
– Baking soda
– Vinegar
– Essential oils like lemon, pine, and tea tree
Start by combining the baking soda, washing soda, and salt in a bowl. Add just enough water to make a spreadable paste. Then, remove the oven racks and preheat the oven to 250°F. Turn off the oven and spread the paste on the oven walls with a sponge or cloth. Let it sit for 20-30 minutes.
Next, combine the vinegar and essential oils in a spray bottle and give it a good shake. Spray the oven walls and wipe clean. You may need to use some steel wool or a scrub brush for any stubborn spots.
Finally, rinse the oven well and admire your sparkling clean oven! This natural oven cleaner is so much better than the harsh chemical sprays. It’s non-toxic, fume-free, and gets the job done just as well, if not better.
So ditch the store-bought oven cleaners and give this homemade version a try. Your lungs (and the environment) will thank you. And if you’re looking for more natural cleaning solutions, be sure to check out the Adam Cleaning website for tips and recipes.
