cleaning with vinegar?

[salsah]

this is sort of a spin-off of the "household cleaners you can't live w/o" thread. many of use use vinegar for almost everything. however everyone uses something else for laundry detergent, dish washing soap, and dishwasher detergent. it seems to me that for the dishes we eat out of and the clothes we wear, we should use something as natural as possible. if vinegar is so great at cleaning everything else in our homes, why don't we use it for washing our clothes and dishes? has anyone tried? does anyone know of a reason why i shouldn't just pour some vinegar into my dishwasher?

[BelleoftheBallFlagstaff]

I use vinegar as a rinse aid in the dishwasher, and clothes washer. Love it!

[salsah]

Originally Posted by BelleoftheBallFlagstaff

I use vinegar as a rinse aid in the dishwasher, and clothes washer. Love it!

i do use it as a fabric softener but i didn't think to use it as a rinse aid. i'll try that next time.

[MamaKath]

Originally Posted by salsah

if vinegar is so great at cleaning everything else in our homes, why don't we use it for washing our clothes and dishes? has anyone tried? does anyone know of a reason why i shouldn't just pour some vinegar into my dishwasher?

I don't know, but I was thinking about using Dr. Bronner's for some of these things (I was going to post the same question but about Dr. Bronner's, lol). I don't think vinegar would disolve dirt as well on its own. I was reading the Dr. Bronner's page for castile soap to see uses and dilutions. http://www.drbronner.com/faqs_main.html I am interested to hear what others have to say.

[babybunny]

There was a recent letter the editor in a handy man type magazine complaining about the use of vinegar to clean marble. So I just googled "cleaning marble with vinegar" and a Dear Heloise column came up:

Dear Heloise: A while back, I remember reading about the many wonderful uses for vinegar. I want to share my vinegar nightmare so that others might not have the same experience.

I have a small cleaning business, and while on a walk-through for a new client, I noticed that her granite counter had some water spots that she couldn't get out. I used vinegar to take care of the problem, and it worked.

Well, she had a marble dining-room table. I noticed some spots, so I sprayed the table with vinegar. Huge mistake! I never knew that vinegar would etch the marble table and do major damage. I contacted several people on what to do about it, and most said it would cost hundreds of dollars to repair.

My husband found a place that had products that they thought would take care of the problem, and thankfully it did.

The point of this is to tell your readers that although vinegar is a wonderful cleaning aid, it does nothing but damage marble, and I never knew that before this experience. — M.J., Freeport, Ill.

Oh my! I love vinegar, but, as you have found, it does not work on all surfaces. Also, it's lucky the granite countertop wasn't damaged as well.

[o_mom]

I use vinegar for rinsing diapers.

Dishwasher we use the Costco evironmentally friendly stuff, but if you wanted to make your own, I found this recipe: 1 1/2 c borax + 1/4 c citric acid + 15 drops EO (optional), mix well and use about 1 T per load.

Hand washing, again we are using the Costco green stuff, but you could use Dr. Bronners instead.

[justincase]

For laundry I use a 50-50 mix of borax and washing soda (plus EO) with vinegar thrown in the fabric softener dispenser. I love this mixture and haven't had problems with it at all. Clothes come out smelling clean and fresh and soft. Gross residue inside my washer is gone without scrubbing. My and DS's dry itchy patchy skin much improved.

For dishes I tried using the same thing (supposed to work) but it left residue and also didn't really get my dishes clean. (I've posted before about my hard water woes, which didn't help.) Monkeying with the proportions didn't help. Tried every "green" dishwasher product I could get my hands on, but couldn't get either clean or residue-free dishes, even with vinegar in the rinse aid dispenser. Sadly, back to the "baddie" non-green stuff for this one! I do love Dr. Bronner's for hand washing dishes.

[neeleymartin]

Originally Posted by BelleoftheBallFlagstaff

I use vinegar as a rinse aid in the dishwasher, and clothes washer. Love it!

me too. it works as a great fabric softener. you can smell it on the clothes when you open the washing machine, but the smell disappears in the dryer. who wants to walk around smelling like a pickle all day long?!? lol.

[shawnandangel]

On a similar note - Does vinegar disinfect? My husband and I were discussing switching from 409 to vinegar and water to clean our countertops but we are worried about e coli and salmenella. TIA

[neeleymartin]

Originally Posted by shawnandangel

On a similar note - Does vinegar disinfect? My husband and I were discussing switching from 409 to vinegar and water to clean our countertops but we are worried about e coli and salmenella. TIA

quite sure that vinegar on it's own does not, but mix with water and tea tree oil and it does disinfect. the tea tree oil does. we use it in the bathroom.