Behold the power of Vinegar

I may be a little late to the whole green cleaning world, but I have been thinking of making the switch for awhile now and after all it's the thought that counts right?

I really like the idea of cleaning the house without all the harmful chemicals but in my mind it's those harmful chemicals that I feel get my house clean.  But after doing some research over the past few months I think I'm ready to take baby steps into the green world of cleaning.  Now, I can't quit all the traditional cleaning products cold turkey and I may not ever be able to give up certain ones... We'll see. However, I am going to try out some "natural" products and ways to clean and hopefully I can make my cleaning routine a little bit better for my family, the environment, and my pocketbook. 

I'm finding vinegar can be used to clean just about anything.  I recently started using it in place of my fabric softener.  When I first heard about this I was a bit, ah yea not gonna walk around smelling like a jar of pickles, but I was assured once my clothes were dry they would not smell like vinegar. I was intrigued, but not convinced. So I figured I would first try it out on my sheets and towels because if in fact they did smell I could just rewash them quick (cuz you know a load of clothes would be so much more difficult to rewash them some sheets or towels).

Anyways... I washed four beds worth of sheets and blankets, and a house full of towels and NONE I repeat NONE came out smelling like vinegar!!

I add  ½ cup to 1 cup of white vinegar to the fabric softener dispenser of my washing machine.  If you don't have one just add it to your rinse cycle or you could get a downy ball and put it in that.  The vinegar will deodorize, soften clothes, and prevent static cling.

Vinegar is a lot cheaper than traditional fabric softeners and you won't be using all those harmful chemicals.  My family also deals with sensitive skin issues, my daughter especially, so I can't really use any fabric softener on her clothes anyways so this works wonders for her stuff.

Now there are some other "recipes" for natural fabric softeners that I may try out, but for now I'm liking the plain vinegar.

*Make sure you do NOT use bleach and vinegar together as this is a very unsafe combination. You shouldn't really mix bleach with anything except water.

Do you do any "green" cleaning?