How to Make Homemade Odor Beating Cleaners

Destroying the unpleasant odors around a kitchen or any other location in a home is pretty easy if you know what you’re doing. You won’t really need chemical-based cleaners from your stores to make that happen. Although these products may be easy to work with, you can just as easily make a homemade solution of your own that will easily beat them without a hitch, plus they won’t be nearly as expensive, not to mention they will be a lot healthier to use as well.

Although studies are not too conclusive for this, they have shown that breathing in the fumes of the multitudes of chemical-based cleaners will at least irritate your lungs and in some cases it may even become a health issue with the harsher chemicals on the market. A lot of them tend to contain chemicals that are just irritating to the skin and eyes as well, making it even worse when ingested by accident. Homemade concoctions however use natural ingredients such as lemon juice, vinegar, herbs, baking soda and dried flowers and carry no health risks due to their lack of toxicity.

The first thing you need to do to safely remove the odors of your home is to locate and eliminate their source. The best way to ensure you have a fresh-smelling home is to maintain a cleaning routine. Remove any sources of offensive odors first before you plan on masking the smell with something else. Cleanliness is the best way for you to maintain a healthy environment. Mold for example needs to be completely eliminated if you want to escape that musty smell. Coving up the smell is always a temporary solution at best if mold is not removed.

Freshen up your laundry and bed linens by boiling lavender leaves for about 15 minutes or so, straining it and then adding the liquid to your washing machine cycle during the final rinse. The scent of lavender will be a great final touch in making your laundry smell natural, not to mention it is believed to help with insomnia, irritability and anxiety in aroma therapy.

Unpleasant odors in cupboards, luggage, drawers and trunks can be eliminated by using white vinegar and white bread. Simply place a slice of white bread in a small bowl and cover it with vinegar. Place the bowl inside the enclosed space that needs to be refreshed, close it and let it stay like that for about a day. If you need to do this in a drawer, make sure you use a deep enough bowl so the vinegar won’t spill when you open and close the drawer itself.

Another tip for freshening up your musty-smelling drawers, closets and trunks is to add some cedar wood shavings. They will remove all bad odors and replace them with the scent of fresh wood. Shavings can also absorb moisture and happen to block out odors. You may need to replace them often enough, but you can also use some drawstring linen bags of powdered sachet or potpourri.

If you want to absorb any unpleasant smells from your fridge, then you will need to have an open box of baking soda somewhere inside. This is a box that should never be used for cooking, since it will absorb all odors from inside the fridge and will allow you to remove all odors. You shouldn’t throw away the soda if you can, since you can use it to freshen up your sink after using the box for three months or so. Simply pour it down the drain and follow that up with hot water. Unused coffee grounds can also absorb scents from a fridge, but baking soda is likely to be the cheaper alternative.

You can also work on preventing unpleasant smells from building up in your dishwasher. Chemicals are rarely necessary to do so, since you can keep the dishwasher door slightly ajar at most other times. Keeping it closed will only trap the moisture inside, which in turn will serve to allow fungi to grow and create that musty smell.

Another simple and useful mixture to deal with really unpleasant smelling sinks is to use a combination of baking soda and distilled white vinegar. This will work wonders when poured down the drain, but it won’t unclog them. You don’t have to worry about it being unsafe since both ingredients are nontoxic.

All of the aforementioned solutions can be used for kitchen cleaning, carpet cleaning and just house cleaning in general, so feel free to utilize them as you see fit and look forward to a clean home.