Oh, the temptation of Clorox wipes and Lysol wipes, and even store-brand disinfecting wipes! That bleachy smell! That grab-and-go convenience! Those poisonous, germ-killing toxins! It’s not right that I have to drench my house in toxic chemicals just to keep the puke bug away. Natural cleaning is always the goal, even when you want to disinfect. Fortunately, by following the recipe in Homemade Cleaners, by Mandy O’Brien and Dionna Ford, homemade, non-toxic disinfecting wipes are an easy DIY project. I doubled the recipe for disinfecting wipes found in Homemade Cleaners, then raided the scrap bin to sew some cloth wipes. Here’s the tutorial for baby-sized wipes–mine are washcloth-sized, about 7″x8″. Leaving the doubled recipe for disinfectant at the bottom of a quart-sized Mason jar, I roll up and cram ten of my cloth wipes into the jar. Leave them for a few hours, and the disinfectant will get soaked up evenly by all the cloth wipes. I keep my Mason jar of disinfecting wipes in my bathroom, where I think it looks pretty on a shelf in front of my washboard (which I use) and next to my mouthwash (which I ought to use more often). One cloth wipe, just damp when I take it from the jar, is the perfect size to wipe down my small bathroom–tub rim, sink, toilet, and even a bit of the floor in a pinch. When the cloth is used, I toss it into the dirty laundry, and when I do the laundry, I fold each clean and dry cloth wipe and stack them next to the Mason jar. When the Mason jar is empty of wipes, I make a new double-batch of disinfectant, roll up and cram in the cloth wipes, and begin again! The homemade disinfecting wipes aren’t the only cleaning supplies from Homemade Cleaners that I use; another time I’ll tell you about the homemade dishwasher detergent that I now use, or how thieves’ oil will forever save me from getting the puke bug. I received a free copy of Homemade Cleaners, because I can’t review a book unless I’ve used it to perform chemistry with tea tree oil and vinegar.
