We Pick Our Best Homemade Cleaner

Over the last few years we have brought you many great ideas on how to make the best homemade cleaner for your toughest stains and cleaning tasks. Here is a summary of our most popular homemade cleaners.

Fan Favorites for The Best Homemade Cleaner

• Homemade Brass and Copper Cleaner - To clean all of your brass and copper, create a paste of vinegar and salt. Use a clean cloth and rub the mixture into the surface until the surface shines. Let it sit for a few minutes and apply the paste again with a clean cloth if necessary. Keep moving what area of the cloth you are using to avoid spreading the discoloration that you have removed. Wipe well with a fresh cloth to bring the metal to a clean shine. 
• Homemade Eyeglass Cleaner - We use a lot of eyeglass cleaner so I worked on making the Ultimate Homemade Eyeglass Cleaning Solution. It is very simple to make and works great. It is safe for most coatings and very inexpensive to make. Make a mixture of 3 parts rubbing alcohol and 1 part water. Add a few drops of mild liquid dish soap. Mix well and put into a spray bottle. Spray both sides of the lens and rub clean with a clean, soft cloth. I find that a good microfiber cloth works the best. Be careful to never use paper towels or else you can scratch your lenses. Rinsing the glasses under the faucet first to quickly wash away excess dirt will also aid in keeping scratches away. 
• Homemade All-Purpose Kitchen Cleaner - A great homemade all-purpose kitchen cleaner is very easy to make, just fill a spray bottle with half white vinegar, half clean water, and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Just spray the surface and wipe down with your Super Scrubbing Cleaning Cloth. Remember to use the button when you get to those dried on food stains to wipe them away easily. This cleaner is fairly acidic and should not be used on granite, marble, natural stone, or wood. 
• Homemade Oven Cleaner - Mix 5 tablespoons of Baking Soda, 4 teaspoons of white vinegar, and a few drops of dish soap in a bowl to make a paste. Spread the paste onto the stains and let it sit for about 30 minutes. Wipe the area clean with a dry cloths or paper towel. I usually take a wet paper towel and give the inside a through wipe down at the end. 
• Homemade Tough Carpet Stain Remover - For tough carpet stains try mixing 1/2 cup salt, 1/2 cup baking soda, 8 drops of white vinegar, and a small amount of water to make a paste. Spread the paste onto the stain. You can just let it dry or you can work it into the carpet for really tough stains. After the paste has dried, brush with a stiff brush and vacuum. Don't brush too hard as not to damage the carpet. This is a very powerful carpet cleaner so be sure to test your carpet for color fastness. 
• Homemade Wood Furniture Cleaner - To create your own wood cleaner simply combine 1 teaspoon of light olive oil and 1/2 cup of white vinegar. Mix well in a plastic spray bottle. Spray on your wood furniture and work in with a microfiber cloth. This works as well or better than any commercial product that I have tested. When done, use our homemade polish to bring out the shine.

And the fan favorite best homemade cleaner is Homemade Tough Carpet Stain Remover! This homemade cleaner has received the most response from our viewers and, hopefully, has helped a lot of you get better cleaning results!

Homemade Eyeglass Cleaner

Keeping your glasses clean is very important.  Dirty glasses can lead to stronger prescriptions as the dirt will make you eyes work harder to focus. My toddler son wears glasses and he gets them very dirty every day.  We probably clean his glasses at least three times a day.  He just hasn't figured out how not to touch the lenses.

We use a lot of eyeglass cleaner so I worked on making the Ultimate Homemade Eyeglass Cleaning Solution.  It is very simple to make and works great. It is safe for most coatings and very inexpensive to make. Make a mixture of 3 parts rubbing alcohol and 1 part water. Add a few drops of mild liquid dish soap. Mix well and put into a spray bottle. Spray both sides of the lens and rub clean with a clean, soft cloth. I find that a good microfiber cloth works the best.  Be careful to never use paper towels or else you can scratch your lenses.  Rinsing the glasses under the faucet first to quickly wash away excess dirt will also aid in keeping scratches away.

Shake Your Jewelry Clean With An Ultrasonic Cleaner

I bought an Ultrasonic Cleaner a few years ago I and keep finding more uses for it. When I first saw it on sale at Harbor Freight, I didn't think I would use it enough to get my money's worth. Boy was I wrong.

My first intention was to use it to clean jewelry. My wife has a few rings she wears everyday and they can get pretty dirty, especial if she forgets to take them off before gardening. We put a few of her rings in the machine with some water and set it for 3 minutes. When the timer went off we where surprised too find cloudy water. We got the rings out and washed them off with clean watter and cleaned them off with a microfiber cloth. They looked brand new.

Our excitement overwhelmed us as we cleaned earrings, bracelets, necklaces and other jewelry we could find. The Ultrasonic Cleaner cleaned everything very well. Then I tried my watch. I wear it everyday and until I cleaned it in the Ultrasonic Cleaner I had no idea how dirty it got. The first day we had the machine we spent a few hours just finding things to clean in it. Here are some of the items we have found over the years that we clean regularly in it:

• All kinds of jewelry (rings, earrings, watches, bracelets, necklaces) - The only thing you have to watch for with watches or jewelry is that it must be submersible. The water will probably damage leather bands on a watch.
• Glasses and Sunglasses - You will be surprised how much gunk can collect on them.
• Coins - My coins in my collection have never looked better.
• Combs and Brushes - Make sure you remove the hair first.
• Electronic Shaver Heads - Just the savings from cleaning these has paid for my ultrasonic cleaner.
• Wagner Power Painter Nozzles - Forgot to clean my power painter nozzle and thought I would have to buy a new one, not after I cleaned it. I added a tablespoon of turpentine to the water to boost this, but I don't know if I needed to.
• Gun Parts, Machine Parts, Car Parts, Lots of Parts
• And much more

If you clean any jewelry or small machine parts regularly I recommend getting an Ultrasonic Cleaner. There are lots of brands and models, but the two features I have found most useful are a timer that runs longer than 90 seconds and a fan to cool the unit. I have found that most things take about 3 minutes to get really clean. When you run the machine for this long the motor can get hot so a fan will help it last longer. When you get your machine, I hope you have as much using it as we do.

Stop Your Glasses From Fogging Up

This time of year I have to contend with the most annoying thing, fogged glasses. When the humidity gets high, every time I get out of my car or walk outside my glasses fog up. I either have to a wait a minute to see or wipe off my glasses. For some reason this really bothers me, but not any longer. Spray your glasses with foaming shaving cream and wipe them off with a soft cloth. I usually use a microfiber cloth, but any soft cloth that won't scratch your glasses will work. I try to do this every other week. I don't have any special coatings on my glasses but if you do check with store you bought your glasses from to be sure the shaving cream won't harm the optical coating. If you have mirrors in your bathroom that fog up, you can use shaving cream on them also.