Homemade Bleach Alternative Is Healthier

 

Trying to escape from strong toxic chemicals like chlorine bleach with its sodium hypochloriate and calcium hypochlorite for cleaning and laundry has been my new mission. I’ve been devoting more to experimenting with DIY green cleaning methods especially after all the rain that we had that is contributing to more mold than ever and the need for bleach. Besides inhaling the suffocating fumes of bleach that love to linger in the room despite how well-ventilated the room is, chlorine bleach is corrosive and bad for our pipes. Therefore, I decided to try my hand at making a homemade bleach alternative that I want to share with you.

My homemade bleach alternative recipe is safer to breathe in using 3% hydrogen peroxide, lemon juice, water, baking soda, and 15 drops of lavender oil. Unlike a high concentration of hydrogen peroxide that you may run across for industrial mold removal or the like such as a 35%, the 3% concentration is safe in how its chemical reaction breaks down in water.  Here’s the interesting part that at this lower strength, the hydrogen peroxide still has antibacterial properties.

Being said, the ingredients in my homemade bleach alterative won’t eat through a plastic bottle container like many commercial cleaning products can do these days. If you haven’t run into this problem of a bleach bottle leaking from the new plastic material used in the containers, it is a possibility that can damage things.

Ever since I had this experience with a gallon bottle of chlorine bleach, I always made it a point to put something underneath that could protect my tile floor in my laundry room. In fact, be careful of other commercial products with bleach in the formula because I had a cleaning product that I didn’t use too often that also ate through the plastic bottle as well.

You may be thinking that making your own homemade healthier  bleach recipe will cost so much more than buying commercial bleach. I’m not going to lie and tell you that it is cheaper because it does run slightly a bit more, but it is better for you and the environment.

Though you can store your bleach recipe in your old emptied plastic bleach bottle, I stored mine in an emptied gallon jar from pickles. If you have a gallon wine bottle, this would work as an environmentally friendly container after you initially mix it up and transfer it.

You can use lemon essential oil that can help with just a tad more brightening, but I didn’t notice that much of a benefit. In my opinion, the lemon essential oil just provided more pleasant scent to justify the cost. Instead, if you want to scent your homemade healthier bleach alternative, lavender essential oil added a nice scent.

If you’re trying to avoid chemical cleaners as well, I hope that you check out several of my other healthier homemade cleaning products such as my DIY non-toxic cleaning spray, vinegar DIY orange cleaning spray and all purpose cleaning spray recipes.

Homemade Bleach Alternative

1/4 cup of lemon juice
1 cup of hydrogen peroxide (3%)
10 cups of water
15 drops of lavender essential oil or lemon essential oil
1 cup of baking soda

 

To prepare this homemade bleach alternative involves just mixing everything together.

Add the baking soda last because it does foam.

For laundry, I use one cup per load of whites.

For general cleaning, I just pour into my bucket or basin as needed.

I can’t tell you how long this homemade bleach can keep. It took me a few weeks to use the first batch of the two I made, but I was doing a lot of cleaning.