Vineger, My New Best Friend

Pinterest has all kinds of cleaning tips and tricks.  Not sure all of them work, but it is worth a shot, especially since I clearly had nothing better.  I recently tried a couple of tricks to see if they worked.

EXPERIMENT #1

 

 

This is my favorite experiment and it comes from The Thrifty Home. I have a MAJOR issue with hard water at our house.  I solved the issue of the milky white dishes with the hard water scum on them when my girlfriend, Kasie, told me about LemonShine...LOVE IT!!! But I still have issues with hard water on my faucets and sometimes on my counters.

 

Process: Soak paper towels in vinegar and wrap around faucets. wait an hour and wipe off. Cleaning power of Vinegar!

 

My Verdict: Two thumbs WAY up!!! Vinegar will now be my favorite cleaning solution, and it's cheap, who doesn't love that!!!

 

Here are my actual before and after pictures...When I do it again, I will wipe a little better.

 

Before

 

After

 

 

EXPERIMENT #2

 

 

This pin was from a website called My Thirty Spot and she has some good ideas for cleaning there.  I did this to all my towels after my family had left {everyone noticed they had a slight mildew smell when they were wet from drying off}.

 

Process: Wash your towels in hot water with a cup of vinegar, then run again in hot water with a half-cup of baking soda {I actually just put the vinegar in instead of detergent and threw the baking soda in on top of the towels and ran it in the same wash so we didn't did a second cycle} . 

 

My verdict: Thumbs up...my towels smell MUCH better, well, they just don't really have any smell now which is just the way I like them!

EXPERIMENT #3

 

This pin came from a website called Crunchy Betty.  My kitchen sink smelled, and when I pulled out the black rubber thing, I realized it was because a few nights ago when we had stir fry, I had let too much of the noodles and some veggies go down and they were stuck in the garbage disposal.  After cleaning them out...SICK...I tried this trick.

Process: Start by running hot water through your garbage disposal for a minute. Pour about 1/4 c. baking soda into the drain. Flip the garbage disposal on for 2 seconds, just to whirl the baking soda inside, and then leave it alone for 10-15 minutes. Follow with 1 c. of vinegar. Watch the bubbles erupt out of your drain. Rinse through one last time with very hot water and run your garbage disposal for 5 seconds.

My verdict: Thumbs up!  I can't be 100% certain that the smell wouldn't have gone away simply by getting all the gunk out of there, but once I was done, there was no smell left!

EXPERIMENT #4

 

 

We have this great hand crank ice cream maker that we got as a wedding gift {there is a lot of sentimental background behind this gift and it is really special to me}.  After not having used it for 2 years {moves and whatnot} we pulled this out a couple of weeks ago to make ice cream it was COVERED in rust.  It still worked, but it was just kind of gross looking.  I wanted to try to get to rust off.

Process: Aluminum foil dipped in water takes off rust! But when that didn't totally work, I decided to try my new favorite cleaning product...VINEGAR! To my dismay, it helped a tiny tiny wee bit, but not enough to make the rust come off.

My Verdict: One thumb sideways.  I know that rust came off because it was running down the sink and all over my hands, but it didn't look like it came off, as it is still rust colored.  I am not too disappointed since it at least still functions.

Here are my before and after pictures:

Before

After

 After

 All the rust going down the drain

The long and short of it is...I LOVE VINEGAR FOR CLEANING!!!