Sarasota Maids Answer: Can You Really Clean With Vinegar?

Cleaning your home can either be a fun and easy task or it can be difficult and frustrating. The main reason: your cleaning tools and products. If you’re not using the proper tools and cleaning products, your cleaning process can take a lot longer than you want.

Having the right tools and products at your disposal will help move along your process and make it fun at the same time. One of the cleaning products many people gravitate toward is vinegar. Did something spill? Put vinegar on it. Do you have a stain? Put vinegar on it. But there have been debates about whether or not you should really clean with vinegar. Getting in on the conversation, Sarasota Maids answer: can you really clean with vinegar?

What You Can Clean with Vinegar

Vinegar isn’t the answer for every cleaning situation, but here is what you CAN clean with vinegar:

• Instead of paying for window cleaners, you can easily make your own! Mix two tablespoons of white vinegar with a gallon of water and dispense from a spray bottle.
• Just like you clean out your coffee pot with vinegar, you need to de-gunk your dishwasher and you can do that by filling two cups with vinegar, putting them on the top rack of your dishwasher, and then running it like normal.
• When your towels begin to feel stiff, toss them in the washer with half a cup of vinegar and no detergent. This will remove detergent residue that is making it feel scratchy.
• Stains, like wine, that are tough to get out can be battled by mixing one tablespoon of liquid hand dishwashing detergent and one tablespoon of white vinegar with two cups of warm water.
• Stubborn glue. If you’re having trouble removing the sticky label residue off a product or accidentally glued something together, using vinegar as a solvent can help dissolve many common adhesives.

What You Should Not Clean with Vinegar

While vinegar makes a great cleaner, there are some things you should NEVER clean with vinegar:

• Granite and Marble Countertops. Vinegar is very acidic and that can etch into the natural stone of granite and marble.
• Stone Floor Tiles. Just like your granite and marble countertops, your natural stone floor tiles don’t take kindly to acidic cleaners like vinegar, lemon, and ammonia.
• Egg Stains. If you drop an egg, your instincts may be to reach for the vinegar but don’t. The acid in the vinegar will coagulate it just like a poached egg and make it more difficult to remove.
• Unlike your coffee pot and dishwasher, using vinegar to freshen up and clean out your iron can cause internal damage.

Vinegar can be an excellent cleaning product when you know how and where to use it. For more tips on vinegar do’s and don’ts, call HouseMaids today at (941) 953-4300.