Making your own natural all-purpose cleaner is an easy and fun way to reduce the chemicals in your home. What makes this cleaner so unique is that it works in both the kitchen and the garden alike. It cleans the counters and the table, and kills bugs and spiders. Sounds like a win-win!

Making your own Natural Cleaner is so easy:

It takes 2 minutes to make

Doesn’t contain any nasty chemicals

Cleans fabulously and smells great

Another plus to this recipe: It doesn’t have any vinegar in it. Some people are turned off by their counters smelling like vinegar, so if you’re one of those people, this recipe is for you.

Discovering that bugs dislike this cleaner was a happy accident. I learned from experience. We inherited an ant problem when we moved into our new house and I. Tried. Everything. I tried vinegar, salt, baking soda, baking soda mixed with sugar, sugar mixed with salt, lemon, natural bug sprays, toxic bug sprays, and ant hotels outside.

I cursed, I vacuumed, I swept and I burned sage right in their faces. I tried everything short of ant chalk (which works great but is toxic, and Raid, which is nasty). I tinkered and tinkered with lots of different essential oils in my spray. Then one day, lo and behold, they were gone. And they never came back! It could have been a coincidence, but once I landed on this blend of essential oils, they left and never came back.

Trigger: It Kills Bugs

This spray also kills brown widows. I live in Southern California and have a little bit of history killing brown widow spiders. Sorry, not sorry. I have kids! And before that I had a cat.

Years ago I used to go out at night with a flashlight. I tried to “invent” my natural own brown widow insecticide, but nothing was as effective as a good old flip flop. Enter this cleaner. I literally just zapped a whole little family of young brown widows (under my kid’s picnic table no less!). This blend is my go to. It does the job, however for larger spiders, I still recommend the flip flop.

Snails, caterpillars and other insects also do not like this spray. It is gentle enough to use on your fruit and vegetable plants to deter pesky bugs.

Recipe

First off, get yourself a 16 oz amber glass bottle with trigger. Like this one. Here’s the handy trigger.

1 Tbsp. of Dr. Bronners Unscented Pure Castille Soap (I use Baby Unscented)

20 drops of Geranium Essential oil

20 drops of Orange Essential Oil

15-20 drops of Rosemary Essential oil

15 drops of Tea Tree Oil

15 drops of Lavender Essential Oil

Tap water or Distilled Water

Instructions

Add all soap and essential oils into your bottle. Then fill the rest of the bottle up with water and give it a shake. You could use distilled water if you are not going to use up the mixture within a week or two, otherwise tap is fine unless you think your tap water has tons of bacteria. I haven’t had any problems. In fact, I’ve had the opposite of problems with this spray. You’re welcome 🙂