6/13/12

Pinterest Pickings- Review of cleaning recipes

I spent this last weekend running around completing errands like a mad women, being sick (yuck!), and cleaning my house. Ever since the re-plumbing, my house has just not felt like it's gotten back in full order, and of course, a really good scrub down always makes things feel better.

My usual run down of store bought cleaning supplies were just not cutting it lately, so I decided to try a bunch of those cleaning recipes I keep pinning on Pinterest and test them out. Here is what I found:

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"How to remove grease/dirt build up from kitchen cabinets. 1st heat slightly damp sponge/cloth in microwave for 20 - 30 sec. until it's hot. Put on a pair of rubber gloves, spray cabinets w/ an all-purpose cleaner containing orange oil, then wipe off cleaner w/ hot sponge. This should make the kitchen look & smell wonderful too! "

The Good: This did make my cabinets look and smell wonderful.

The Bad: It didn't get off all of our grease spots on the cabinets. When we moved in there were grease spots all over our kitchen cabinets. The last people who lived there obviously never used the stoves fan and liked to cook greasy food. We have tried pretty much EVERYTHING on the cabinets and although it's better, grease spots still remain!  Grease Lightning has probably still worked the best to date, sorry hot orange cleaner.

The Ugly: I didn't heat my sponge up in the microwave, seemed too germy for me. I just put super hot water on the sponge and rung it out really well. Not sure if this affected its effectiveness.

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"Pinner said: My bathtub has never been whiter!! Works great on glass shower doors too- no more soap residue! Martha Stewart's Tub Scrub--works better than any other cleaning product to get off hard water and soap residue "

The Good: EVERYTHING! I am seriously in love with this recipe. I'm not sure I"ll ever use another cleaner to clean my tubs and showers again! This sounds gross, but the bottoms of our tubs always looked a little gray on those built in slip protector bumps. I tried everything to clean my tubs but nothing ever made it seem clean enough. THIS WORKED! My tubs have NEVER looked whiter!
The recipe calls for 1 cup Baking Soda, 1 Tbs Dish Soap (we used our blue dawn dish soap), and several drops of essential oils (we couldn't find essential oils, so we used this rosemary mint oil we found at Walmart in the candle section. SMELLED LIKE HEAVEN!). Then you add water to make a paste. Scrub the paste all over the tub and shower, let it sit for a bit, then wash away dirt and grim. Tried the bits of left over in my toilet and it worked there too.

The Bad: You have to scrub, use some elbow grease, but the payoff is totally worth it.

The Ugly: None!

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"Forget keeping skin soft, baby oil also polishes chrome. Apply a dab to a cotton cloth and use it to shine everything from faucets to hubcaps. You'll end up with shiny, happy surfaces from a medicine-cabinet staple. (Who actually owns chrome cleaner, anyway?) "

The Good: This definitely does get faucets sparkling, and seems to remove hard water stains.

The Bad: It seems like a temporary fit. The next day everything comes back . . .or maybe we are just really messy?

The Ugly: My faucets seemed slippery and slimy, no matter how much I kept whipping off the oil.

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"Laminate Floor Cleaner: Vinegar, Water, Dish Soap, Alcohol."

The Good: This did clean my laminate floors. Even without any alcohol (I had none on hand) it still seemed to streak less then my store bought cleaner. My floors looked amazing afterwards.

The Bad: The vinegar smell seems to linger for a while, and it is a pretty strong smell.

The Ugly: I read on eHow that vinegar on wood floors can ruin the protective finish on the floors, which makes me nervous that it would ruin the finish on my laminate floors too. If that protective finish gets ruined on laminate, then you've basically just ruined your floors. Not sure I would use this one again just for that reason alone. not worth chancing it.



Now, while I was doing all this cleaning Scout decided to have her first, second, third, and FOURTH potty accidents on our carpet. Totally frustrated with that little pup. We would take her on a walk, then 20 minutes later she'd pee on the rug. What is up with that?

I think she wanted me to stop cleaning and just play with her or something, not sure what she was doing. I tried to use the rest of the laminate cleaner on the pet stains but that just made my house smell worse (a similar recipe was being toted on Pinterest as working for pet stains). I need to do some more research on this issue. After all that cleaning, my house now just smells like animal- so gross. I've never wanted to be that house!

Any good solutions you have for pet stains please share!

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