I love making my own cleaning supplies. It's affordable, simple, customizable, and it gives me an excuse to use that glass spray bottle I spent way too much money on.
For most surface sprays, I use various diluted mixtures of vinegar, rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, castile soap, and an array of essential oils—usually just my tried and true rosemary, peppermint, eucalyptus, and lavender oils from Artizen, tbh.
And then I hear the echo of Amy-past.
Add baking soda.
Baking soda = clean.
Vinegar feels so lonely in that bottle without her bff, baking soda.
Yeah, no. Not really. Let's chat.
Chemical Reactions 101
We all know that certain chemicals react with other chemicals, but we mostly focus on the dangerous stuff. We know not to mix bleach and ammonia, because it can form harmful vapors. Primarily mixing bleach and ammonia causes respiratory irritating chloramine vapor, which can form into headache, nausea, and seizure inducing hydrazine. Yikes. Be safe with bleach and ammonia storage, guys.
And then there are chemicals that cancel each other out when they are mixed. I touched on this a little bit in my Top 4 Homemade Cleaning Products post. My homemade stain remover relies heavily on the bleaching power on hydrogen peroxide, but I added castile soap to the mix to help find a balance that wouldn't destroy colored clothing. Why does castile soap help? Hydrogen peroxide is a weak acid, with a pH around 6.2. Castile soap is a base, with a pH around 8.9. The base castile soap helps bring that hydrogen peroxide into a range where is won't destroy your favorite red shirt you bought on sale in 2015 after stalking it for a year. (Definitely not a personal story that I think about all the time and will never get over as long as I live, amiright?)
Vinegar and Baking Soda Don't Mix
I use a lot of vinegar while cleaning. It takes off grime, leaves my glass dining table spotless, keeps the mold at bay in my bathroom, and it doesn't leave a long lasting scent.
Vinegar is bae. (I mean, bae after my husband. Maybe?)
But I don't mix vinegar with baking soda unless I'm trying to help an 8-year-old make a volcano, because it doesn't do anything. It's a waste of my time and money.
Vinegar is an acid and baking soda is a base.
When these two chemicals mix, a double replacement occurs.
First, the acetic acid in the vinegar reacts with the sodium bicarbonate in the baking soda, making an unstable carbonic acid.
The carbonic acid immediately falls apart into carbon dioxide and water.
The fun bubbling in every good science-fair volcano is that carbon dioxide escaping the solution.
You're left with extremely diluted, useless sodium acetate in water. (So like, just water.)
That's some expensive and useless water.
But, Amy. I see a lot of posts about the cleaning magic of baking soda and vinegar, so you're wrong
I know you see them, because I do, too. I carry the weight of all that useful vinegar and baking soda fading into nothing on my shoulders. The misguided mixing of baking soda and vinegar in cleaning products is one of the reasons I decided to start a blog. Making your own cleaning supplies can be a lot of fun and feel like a craft project .In many ways it really is a creative endeavor, but there is some science to why certain chemicals are (and are not) useful for cleaning. Every time you read a recipe (even mine) you should take a minute to ask yourself why each item is included in that recipe and what chemicals (if any) are reacting.
So don't be fooled by the bubbling magic of baking soda and vinegar. It doesn't do anything for you.
Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.
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