Vinegar – a handy multi-purpose cleaning agent
Vinegar is more than just the soulmate of salty chips, or so the Cool Tools blog would have you believe.
In fact, I started using a spray bottle containing 1 part vinegar to 3 parts water for cleaning for several good reasons – it’s environmentally friendly, good for getting out smells like cat pee (don’t ask) and it’s also gentle on delicate fabrics.
The Cool Tools blog has reviewed a book called Vinegar: Over 400 Various, Versatile, and Very Good Uses You’ve Probably Never Thought Of, and the reviewer included a handy list of his own favourite users of vinegar:
- Clean the microwave by boiling a 50/50 mixture of water and vinegar until it steams up. Wipe clean.
- Add vinegar to a hand-pump compressed-air sprayer to kill weeds and grass growing in crevices in a patio and walkways.
- Make tomato sauceand other condiments last longer when the bottle is almost empty by adding a little vinegar and shaking.
- Spread a cloth soaked in vinegar over a price tag you want to remove and leave overnight.
Got any other tips for using vinegar (or other environmentally friendly substances?) – leave ‘em in comments please.
Vinegar – how to cook, clean and live via Vinegar [Cool Tools]
Comments
For flushing out your kitchen or other sink when it gets smelly : Stuff a heap of bicarb soda down the plughole, as much as you can. Poke it with something and then stick a bit more down there.
Get ready with the plug, pour a heap of vinegar down the hole, and put the plug in. The agitation of the old school vinegar and bicarb volcano reaction loosens the muck, and also releases a heap of carbon dioxide. Putting the plug in means the sudden extra pressure pushes the newly loosened muck down the pipes.
You can do it a few times, till the bicarb stops fizzing.
Put vinegar through your expresso maker if it starts to get a little clogged with calcium and Bam! its like new again. Just make sure you rinse thoroughly.
To reduce soap build up in shower recess spray full strength white vinegar once a week. before you clean shower leave for 1/2 an hour.
It also will remove copper stain in the bath /basin spray full strength and leave for extended period, week I found this out by accident