Homemade natural cleaning products

My best recipes of homemade natural cleaning products for your home. How to make and use your house nature friendly cleaners, the easy & cheap way!

Make your own homemade natural cleaning product might seems like a challenge for some of you. But let me break a fake idea: it is actually easy and fun! The only issue? Find the right ingredients to start with… Especially if like me you live in Japan! But don’t worry for that, I’m going to explain you everything to save you time.

To start with, it was a lot of fun to hunt for the right kanji for the natural ingredient I wanted. Honestly speaking, even Naoshi had trouble to understand what I wanted exactly, and we laughed a couple of time. He was already using eco-friendly and natural cleaning products, now he is happy to use my homemade cleaners.

My story with homemade DIY natural cleaning products, eco-friendly!

When I was travelling and living in the bush with my tent in Australia, I took the habits to live very simply. I was using the minimum needed because I couldn’t carry much. I had to do with what was around me. Not being able to find plants containing soapwort in it, a natural cleaner, I’ve been creative.

My magic nature life philosophy became “simple is best”. Much later, when I settle down in Japan in 2015, I couldn’t stand to see plastic everywhere, chemical in any detergent, hard to find good organic vegetables… Nothing was really matching my value toward ecology and respect for environment.

When I met Naoshi in 2017 and he asked me to live with him in Uenohara in the middle of the forest and the Yamanashi’s mountain, I felt a call for a new start. It was not easy to get the habits not being nomadic anymore and living isolated at first… So I decided to use that time to come back to my DIY homemade house cleaners that I used to like as a child ! After a few experimentation and failures, I’m now very happy to share my recipe with you to hopefully inspire you to try it.

Basics natural cleaners to have at home

Here is the list of the “must have natural ingredients” in your house for making your homemade natural cleaning products:

• Vinegar (white vinegar, rice vinegar… many of them is working).

Just a tips: do not through away the end of the bottle: if you are lucky a “mother of vinegar” can be created if you keep it in a dark place).

• Baking soda or Sodium bicarbonate or Sodium hydrogen carbonate (NaHCO₃) 重曹
• Crystal soda or Dried sodium carbonate (Na₂CO₃) 炭酸ナトリウム or 炭酸ソーダ　
• Soap (石鹸) : Black soap, Marseille soap, or any natural soap equivalent (with no glycerin or as less as possible)
• Lemon レモン
• Cornstarch コーンスターチ

Note: I do note write essential oil. it is absolutely not an oversight but voluntary. Please read my article secret for natural beauty to learn more.

It is important to mention that I am totally against the mis-use of this precious product to respect the plant itself. Due to the very volatile nature of essential oils, the pleasant fragrance will disappear almost immediately. Having worked in their production and in the perfumery field, I would clearly tell you that it is for me to waste them to use them in your cleaning products. Getting used to smell again the true natural scent of things, it’s not so bad, is it?!

Eco friendly containers

Glass is the best for me. However, I highly recommend that you preserve them in a place hidden from the sunlight. Or reuse all what you have… as long as there is no risk of the presence of microplastics.

You can also buy some compostable, or biodegradable sustainable packaging to respect the environment and remain in the same natural life logic.

Homemade natural cleaning products Recipes

Proportion are approximate because I do not feel it’s needed to mesure exactly: it’s really up to you and according to your own use and need.

Natural Laundry detergent

I am proud to introduce you my favorite and best homemade recipe for a DIY natural laundry detergent, so far! Well, actually this is the only one I can make now for practical reasons… the laundry detergent made of ash! Easy, free, simple, efficient.

• 1 liter of rain water
• 2 glass of sieved ash (natural wood, avoid any kind of pin)
• Wait 24h before filtering

After filtering, keep the rest of “ash mud”. It can be use as a scrubbing cream for your kitchen surface.

Other recipes:

Washing nuts: perfect for clothes that are not too dirty. 4-5 is enough, and I reuse them 3 times. I generally add 2 new one… and I through it all after 5 times. I collect them myself… but shhh! This is like mushroom spot: it’s a secret!

Soap only: simple is sometimes the best option… what else to you really need?! If it’s really dirty, you might need to use a brush and your hand before put into the machine.

Dishwashing liquid recipe that respects nature

My DIY homemade natural dish washing recipe can easily become your multi purpose detergent. Only negative point: it can become solid in winter. To solve this issue, choose more a rectangle container to make your life easy when it’s too cold for the mixture to remain liquide! Note: you have to avoid glycerin if you use other soap to make it yourself. It’s not washing very well and the texture become weird.

• 1 big tbsp of black soap
• 1 glass of hot water
• 1 tsp of baking soda
• 1 tsp of crystal soda
• 1 tbsp of vinegar
• 20 drop of lemon

You can also use coffee grounds for cleaning dishes… only the one with no risk of being scratched.

DIY Windows cleaner

• 1 glass of Warm water
• 4 tbsp of vinegar
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• Mix it before use.

Your eco-friendly DIY windows cleaner! However, It’s not 100% perfect as it leave some mark on the windows… I need to improve that one but that do the job. Also, I tried with black soap and rince it with hot water, and it was good actually. Prefer to clean your windows on a sunny day so that it dries fast and avoid marks.

Toilet cleaner eco-friendly

• 1cup of baking soda
• 1 cup of vinegar

To unclog the toilets, I don’t have a solution… We all know about caustic soda but it’s not good for false septics, like we still have in Japan countryside ! So we don’t put paper or anything in the toilet to simply avoid clogging it.

Pipeline ecological cleaner

• Coffee ground

It mainly avoid the smell. However, please, be very careful: only a little bit should go inside the pipeline and you have to drain it with water after.

Clean your sink with coffee ground and ash mud (the left over you have after making your ash laundry detergent), and let a bit of it go inside the pipeline. I will repeat: A LITTLE BIT is enough. I do not want to have to run away from your angry plumber 😉 Despite the fact to clogged it you might have a very old and not good condition pipe, prevent is better than… heal I generally say but in that case that’s a bit odd!

Conclusion about DIY homemade natural cleaning product for your house

As you noticed, it’s not very complicated to make your homemade natural cleaning products for your house! Ready to start from now?

Try the recipe and let me know in the comment! You can also write us an email at contact@bodymind-therapy.com

-> You might like this article about NATURAL BEAUTY 😉 <-

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