Homemade Window Cleaner --- What is a homemade solution to clean windows?

Homemade window cleaner: remembering the good old days

Do you know that our homes are one of the most toxic places--- even sometimes more toxic than the outdoors?

As kids, my siblings and I were taught how to clean the house.  I remember Papa assigning each of us a house chore in the morning and walking around the house to see how well we do our tasks.  

One of my favorite tasks is cleaning windows.  I would smile, feeling I have done a good job, whenever I see our windows shine in the sun after wiping them with nothing else but newspapers dipped in some solution my father would prepare.  

I never realized that there is value not only in being taught how to do chores but also in the simplicity of the way we cleaned. 

Green cleaning

It is really interesting how the products we buy to clean our homes are the same toxins that pollute it, causing various diseases such as cancer, asthma, and other lung problems. 

Chemicals in cleaning fluids that are available in the market contain some of the most common environmental toxins. The average home today contains 62 toxic chemicals. Chemical cleaning supplies found in our homes not only threaten our health but also end up polluting our soil, rivers, oceans, and air. And because moms, infants, pets, and the elderly spend most of the time home, they are more exposed to these chemicals! 

Because household cleaners take up a large portion of our budgets, and they can make us sick, pollute our environment, and threaten our loved ones, green cleaning using nontoxic cleaners is something we should all learn.

Homemade solutions to clean windows

Baking soda, vinegar, and salt are timeless, nontoxic, and effective household cleaning agents. 

Here’s a very simple, cheap, nontoxic and effective homemade window cleaner recipe from Papa:

1 part vinegar 

4 parts water 

lemon juice (optional, I’d rather make lemon juice to quench my thirst after cleaning the windows!)

1. Mix vinegar and water (and lemon juice). 

2. Crumple old newspapers into a ball. The size will depend on you but the bigger the ball, the easier it is to use to wipe off the grime from your windows.

3. Dip the newspaper ball into the solution. The newspaper ball only needs to be wet (not soaked) with the vinegar solution to allow you to use the ball to wipe your windows without it being torn to pieces.  (Besides, this recipe is very effective you really don’t need too much of it to be able to clean!)

4. Wipe your windows using the newspaper ball dipped in the vinegar solution. 

5. Polish windows with a dry newspaper ball for a gleaming, beaming finish.

Simple enough?  You can find other homemade window cleaner recipes over the Internet or buy available nontoxic and biodegradable cleaners sold commercially. The key thing in buying these products is to read the labels. There’s a good chance that if you can’t read the label, less pronounce the words, it’s not good for you or for the environment. 

For cheaper, safer, and more nontoxic cleaning recipes, check out this book by environmentalist Karen Logan.

We really don’t have to kill ourselves trying to keep our houses clean. Being green can be as simple and as cheap as using a homemade window cleaner.

Photo thanks to http://www.flickr.com/ photos/ dominicspics/