Cleaning with #HeinzVinegar

I’ve ditched most of our chemicals. After Aaron was diagnosed with his food allergies last January, I really didn’t think much of his citrus allergy other than it was going to suck because so many foods marketed to kids are orange flavored. Little did I know I was going to be changing the way I cleaned the house too.

We had gone to an indoor bounce house place in our area. They’re constantly spraying and wiping the slides and jumps. When we were getting in the car, I noticed Aaron had a hive on his face, and that he needed his inhaler. Hindsight being 20/20, we probably should’ve used his epipen instead of Benadryl and his inhaler. We were extremely lucky that our novice ways didn’t cause a larger issue.

This is when we learned about contact allergies, and I had to change the way I cleaned our house. Out went all the previous chemicals that my germophobic self loved so dearly. I had to go to chemical-free cleaning, so in came healthy cleaning products like baking soda, Borax, vinegar, cream of tartar, and castile soap. My favorite all purpose cleaner is Borax, vinegar, hot water, and if you’d like, a few drops of castile soap for fragrance. I use the tea tree oil.

Add some hot water, and you have my favorite household cleaner.

This cleaner did wonders on the front of our house. I wish I had before pictures. It was disgusting! You can see what my bucket now looks like after the job. I made up large batches of the multi-purpose cleaner in the bucket and used that. It took 3-4 buckets to wash the front of the house. Bonus for not feeling guilty about any run off outside since I was using green cleaning products and no harsh chemicals.

I’ve also learned that vinegar works for my laundry cleaning solutions when I forget a load (as I inevitably do after so many loads). Some vinegar where you’d normally put the fabric softener, and detergent as usual, gets the sour smell out. I wish I had smellovision here (you’re probably glad I don’t), but you’ll have to pretend. Think about that load you last left for 3 days (oh come on, we’ve all done it), and then think about how it smells when you don’t forget about your laundry. That’s the difference. Vinegar in the wash also gives your towels a good fluffing and gets any invisible gunk out of them so they’re super absorbent again.

Be glad you can’t smell this load. I forgot it for four days.

I was doing all of this and more around my house when I learned that Heinz now has cleaning vinegar. What’s the difference you ask? The #HeinzVinegar for cleaning is higher in acidity, so it’s tougher on your cleaning jobs around your house. This is great for me since so many of the recipes for making your own cleaners have vinegar and a citrus juice like lemon in them. I can’t use the citrus part, so the higher acidity in the cleaning vinegar gives me that extra cleaning oomph while still avoiding my son’s allergens.

You can find Heinz Cleaning Vinegar in the vinegar aisle at your local Walmart.

Look what happens when I use natural cleaning products on the rings on the boys’ bath tub. I used a baking soda paste and straight vinegar.

Do you see the rings? Two grimy little boys left those in the tub.

And after cleaning with baking soda and vinegar, the tub is white again. It’s amazing!

I said I use natural cleaning products everywhere, and I meant it. I use them on my floor too. I wish I had a before of this too. Here is the after (who thought of cream tile in a kitchen?).

Vinegar even works on tile. I use it in the Scooba instead of the cleaning solution that has chemicals.

There really isn’t anything you can’t clean with vinegar around your house. The cost effectiveness is great in this economy too. It’s less than $3 for a whole bottle of the Heinz Cleaning Vinegar. Baking soda and Borax aren’t that much either. I haven’t purchased cleaning supplies in months. Compare this to how much you spend on the conventional cleaners with chemicals and how often you use them up. The change in our house, while necessary for my son’s allergies has had an added benefit on my budget as well.

*I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and HEINZ #CBias #SocialFabric