No-rinse Floor Cleaner

Another addition to my homemade spray-cleaning arsenal is no-rinse floor cleaner, and it's definitely one of my favorites.  I'd been using a Clorox ReadyMop, which I was pleased with.  I like the idea of getting a clean mopping pad each time instead of letting it sit in between uses (ask me about my fear of sponges sometime...although I might throw up in my mouth a little).

But you can use this no-rinse floor spray with any mop.  Refill your ReadyMop/Swiffer bottle with it, make a large quantity of it in a bucket or the sink to use with a traditional mop, or put it in a spray bottle to squirt on the floor with a reusable (washable) microfiber mop head.  (All of these options are available at Wal-Mart, Target, etc.)  One advantage of the spray bottle option is that it can be used just as easily for a spot-clean as it can to spray down the whole kitchen floor.

And it's so much less expensive than what I was buying to the tune of almost $4/bottle.  The home-made version ends up being just pennies a bottle...almost nothing for me since I always keep the ingredients on hand.  And that's another plus, you can always whip up a quick batch when you need some.  In fact,  that's how this came to be as I emptied my store-bought bottle on a kitchen full of muddy paw prints.

Want to try it for yourself?  Here's how to home-make it:

- 1 Tbs white vinegar
- 3 drops essential oil (any scent, I used tee tree oil)
- 32 oz hot tap water in a spray bottle
(You can also fill up your sink with hot water, add 1/3 cup vinegar and 8-10 drops essential oil.)

Then just spritz it on the floor as you go.  It dries relatively quickly, so I just squirted down one strip of tile at time.  If you come across a really dirty spot, you can always give it an extra squirt and let it sit while you do the next strip of floor.  Everything on my floor came off using this with my washable microfiber cloth mop.

You can smell the vinegar when you first spray it out, but that scent dissipates as soon as it dries leaving behind only the light essential oil scent.

And that's it!  No rinsing, no residue, no dirt...well, for a few minutes anyway!