Child Safe Cleaner

One of the worries when you have small children in the house is that they will get their hands on a household cleaner and ingest it or get it on their skin and become sick, or worse.  Even leftover residue from common every day cleaners can cause severe skin irritation to little ones   I was so excited to hear about this all natural cleaner that actually has a pleasant fragrance, unlike your basic homemade-vinegar baking soda mixes. Thanks Suzy S for the idea!

We took orange peels from 5 oranges we peeled for lunch. 

We put them in a canning jar and poured white vinegar over them.

Then we left them to sit for about 10 days.

This draws out the orange oil.

Next we collected everything we would need.

Then we poured the liquid off the peels, straining it through cheesecloth and a strainer.

We squeezed all the liquid out of the peels and tossed them out.

Then we folded the cheesecloth into the bottom of the funnel

 and strained the liquid through 3 more times to

 filter out any remaining little orange bits.

Then we put it in a spray bottle. 

I looked up similar recipes online and some call for diluting it with water.

  We decided not to do that at this point.

For about 25 cents worth of vinegar we got 14 oz of cleaner.

Does it work?

I sent Anna (6) around the house with the spray bottle testing it on different surfaces.

  She was using a warm, damp rag. 

Our review:

• It cleaned the surfaces and did not leave a sticky residue
• It had a pleasant smell.  More orange than vinegar and the smell dissipated quickly.
• It did not leave streaks or smudges.
• It was very cost effective for the type of cleaning we needed it to do

Our conclusion- 

Because it is a mild disinfectant we recommend it for high chairs, counter tops, daily bathroom wipe downs, window sills, door knobs, light switches and other places that are wiped down often but not necessarily needing harsh disinfecting.  Highly recommended for little ones who are learning to clean.  No harsh fumes, no hazard if it gets on their skin or clothes.  And no need to worry about not rinsing it off properly and making someone sick or damaging clothing.  However, we would not recommend it for deeper weekly type bathroom cleaning or for cleaning counters where there has been raw meat. It will not replace bleach if you need to kill hard strains of bacteria like E-Coli. Also maybe not for homes with people who need perfect sanitizing due to lowered immune systems.   

The chemicals in citrus have a corrosive property on certain surfaces so test it in a small area until you know for sure what surfaces you want to use it on.