Vinegar - the Household Cleaner

Vinegar is a vital ingredient in salad dressings and countless sauces and dishes! But vinegar is so much more than just a cooking ingredient. It can actually clean your home. This fresh condiment with its acidic odour will help keep your house shiny and sparkling without the need for harsh chemicals.

Use vinegar to clean your home!

Get a sparkly house without releasing chemicals and toxins into the air or down the drain. You will even save yourself some money at the same time! Because vinegar is natural it does not cause allergies or irritation and is safe to use in the kitchen near food.

• Mix vinegar with cold water and use it to clean wood, ceramics, steel and glass around the home. Use it to clean windows and then wipe the window with newspaper to get a flawless finish.
• Use neat to disinfect the bathroom.
• Remove lime scale and stains from the shower-head and taps. If the stains are old, you might need to scrub them a bit with a brush or sponge.

• Clean smudges and smears from CD’s and DVD’s: they’ll play much better!
• Remove stains from coffee and teapots: Salt stains can deposit on the sides and bottom. Fill with water and vinegar and heat as if you were going to prepare coffee or tea. Allow to boil for a few minutes then rinse out with fresh water.
• Eliminate odours: Fill a bottle with water and a spritz of vinegar and leave it uncovered in a room. Change the water every 12 hours.

• Deodorise the fridge: Place a small container with water and vinegar inside the fridge. Alternatively, wipe the interior surfaces of the fridge with vinegar diluted in water.
• Eliminate rust: Clean rusty bikes or tin openers by applying vinegar and leaving for 24 hours before washing off.
• Remove water marks from wood: rub the mark with a 50/50 mix of olive oil and vinegar
• Easily remove stickers: on containers or children’s bags and furniture. Moisten the sticker with vinegar and wait, then wipe it off.

• Clean pots and pans: Use pure vinegar and let it work for around half an hour. Then wash with your usual washing up liquid and rinse.
• Eliminate drain odours: Vinegar can get rid of smelly and blocked drains. Empty a cup of sodium bicarbonate down the drain and then add a cup of vinegar. Leave it to work for 15 minutes. Then run the cold water tap for 2 minutes to wash it away.
• Disinfect fruits and vegetables: Make sure that the fruit and vegetables you eat raw are free from pathogens. Put them in a bowl and fill with water and a squirt of vinegar and leave for 10 minutes. Use for tomatoes, lettuce, unpeeled apples, peaches.
• Freshen up the dishwasher: they can get very smelly when food waste accumulates. Place one cup of vinegar in the detergent compartment and run it empty on the shortest cycle.
• Removed bad kitchen odours: fried fish, boiled cauliflower or grilled meat can really make your kitchen smell bad! To get rid of the odour just boil one tablespoon of vinegar with one cup of water in a container.

• Eliminate cigarette smoke from clothing: No-one likes the smell of cigarette smoke on clothes yet it can be hard to get rid of. All you have to do is pour two cups of vinegar in the bath and fill the rest with hot water. Hang a washing line over the bath and hang your clothes on that.
• Stop clothes fading: Before placing dark clothing in the washing machine, submerge it it vinegar for half an hour.  You could also add one cup of vinegar to the last wash cycle as a softener. The vinegar smell disappears when the clothes are dried.
• Stain remover (when used the same day): Moisten the clothing with vinegar and leave for a few minutes before washing it.  This works on cotton and polyester clothing. It will not work if it is more than 24 hours after the stain occurred.
• Cleaning rubbish bins: Not the most pleasant container in the house! All you need to do is pour a bit of vinegar inside the bin and swill around. Then rinse.