Commercial products claim to be able to clean/disinfect/deodorize anything but rarely live up to their promises.  Even when they do it’s usually with ingredients you can’t pronounce and aren’t supposed touch/swallow/inhale for fear of irreparable damage to your health.  On top of that those snazzy bottles with the pretty labels and all that marketing behind them cost an arm and a leg.  Enough is enough.  Here are some recipes for homemade cleaning and personal care products that I really use because they really work (and they’re cheap!)

General Disinfectant

Mix 1/2 cup of Borax into a gallon of hot water. Best to use water you just boiled. Stir it until it dissolves, let it cool and pour into a spray bottle to use. Borax is a great disinfectant.

Mosquito Spray

Basic recipe: In a bottle, mix 4 drops of eucalyptus, 4 drops of lavender, 4 drops of rosemary, 4 drops of tea tree essential oils with 1 teaspoon of witch hazel and 4 teaspoons of water. Shake the mixture and apply directly to skin.

Bug spray variation: Add the same mixture of oils to 2 teaspoons of witch hazel and 8 oz of water. Put this in a spray bottle and shake. Spray this directly on the skin.

Oil rub down variation: Add the same mixture of oils to 5 teaspoons of olive oil. Rub the mixture into your skin.

Deodorant - Original source and more details can be found here.

Combine equal portions of baking soda & arrowroot powder (or cornstarch). Slowly add coconut oil until desired consistency is reached.

Foaming Hand Soap - 4:1 water and castile soap (see this post for details)

And of course no home should be without bulk quantities of baking soda and vinegar.  The number of uses for these two products alone is outrageous.