Homemade Kitchen Spray Recipe with Natural Ingredients

Homemade kitchen spray recipe using natural ingredients, including vinegar and essential oil. This easy-to-make and non-toxic cleaning product cleans and sanitizes kitchen surfaces, glass, tiles, and even your toilet bowl.

It’s the beginning of the year, and I’ve started my spring cleaning early. So far, I’ve emptied bookshelves, cleaned cupboards, and pulled out furniture and it’s no surprise that I’ve found all kinds of unwanted grime. That includes dust, crumbs, cobwebs, and stashes of hidden cat toys. You think your home is clean until you start moving furniture and climbing up to see the tops of cabinets and shelves! After cleaning away the debris, I dust the surfaces with a damp cloth and then go over every surface with disinfectant spray and a paper towel. It’s incredibly satisfying to see the result, so I’m racing around finding other things and rooms to clean. As you can imagine, I’m going through a lot of cleaning spray in the process. Though I buy eco-friendly kitchen sprays, I also make them using household ingredients, and I’d like to share how you can do it, too.

Homemade kitchen spray is quick and easy to make, and lower-impact than commercial products. The main ingredients are water and vinegar, but you can also use plant essences and essential oils for scent. Some people also finish theirs off with a little clear alcohol, such as vodka (homemade mandarin vodka) or rubbing alcohol, to help speed up how quickly the spray dries. My recipe is very simple and quick to make, although I’ve included more information if you’d like to infuse yours with herbs and citrus.

All Natural Kitchen Spray Recipe

The main ingredient in my kitchen spray is ordinary white vinegar. It’s inexpensive, colorless, and completely natural. Vinegar is harmless to people and pets but makes short work of bacteria and other microbes. It also cleans grease and grime, helps break down limescale, and is suitable for a lot of different types of surfaces. It leaves a streak-free finish on glass but is also great for wood, kitchen countertops, ceramic, and metal. There are a few surfaces that you should not use a vinegar-based spray on, though. That includes granite, marble, and grout. More on that, a bit further down.

In one study, corroborated by Heinz spokesman Michael Mullen, it was found that just a five percent solution of distilled vinegar was effective in killing 99% of bacteria, 82% of mold, and 80% of germs/viruses, all without the help of harmful chemicals. Vinegar is even used as an additive to commercial cleaners to help create a ‘streak-free shine.’ In my years of using this homemade kitchen spray, I’ve never once thought that it didn’t have the power or effectiveness of commercial products. It’s also easy to whip together if you’ve run out of your traditional kitchen spray.

Infusing Vinegar with Citrus and Rosemary

The recipe below includes essential oil as an optional ingredient for its lovely scent and cleaning properties. If you’d prefer not to use essential oil, you can still get the benefits of citrus by infusing vinegar with citrus peel. I go through this in my book, and it’s really quite simple. Citrus and herbs like rosemary can add to the cleaning action but also naturally scent the spray.

Two weeks before making homemade kitchen spray, fill a mason jar halfway with citrus peels of your choice (orange, lemon, mandarin, grapefruit) and sprigs of rosemary. Fill the jar the rest of the way with white vinegar, seal the jar, and leave it in a cool, dark place for two weeks. Shake occasionally during that time, and at the end of the two weeks, strain the vinegar from the peels and pour it into a jar. You can store the citrusy-scented vinegar for up to three months or use it immediately to make the recipe below.

Natural Kitchen Spray Ingredients

This homemade kitchen spray is easy to make and takes less than a minute. If you’d like to infuse the vinegar with citrus peel or herbs, it takes an additional two weeks; instructions for that are above. Once complete, you can use the spray as a homemade kitchen cleaner, glass cleaner, or to clean the bathroom.

• Empty spray bottle
• Distilled white vinegar
• Water – distilled water is ideal
• Essential oil (optional) – I use rosemary, lemon, lavender, eucalyptus, and/or pink grapefruit essential oil.
• Optional extras: lemon juice, vodka, or rubbing alcohol

1. Fill a spray bottle halfway to two-thirds with vinegar. Top up the rest of the bottle with water, leaving about an inch headspace. Distilled water is best because it’s pure water without hard minerals, but you could use filtered or spring water.
2. Add the optional essential oil. For a standard-sized spray bottle (28 oz/850 ml), add up to fifty drops of your favorite essential oil (a half teaspoon or 2.5ml) to the bottle. Not all types are suitable, though, and I’d recommend you stick to the ones listed above. Give the bottle a good shake.
3. If you’d like, you could add a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice, vodka, or rubbing alcohol to your spray, too. They add more cleaning power, and the alcohol can help the spray evaporate quicker.
4. Since the essential oils will float to the top of the liquid, shake the bottle before each use. Spray away and wipe up as you would with any other household cleaner. If you do smell a bit of the vinegar coming through, it will dissipate after just a few minutes.

Make More Natural Cleaning Recipes

This homemade kitchen spray recipe is easy to make and quite versatile. You could use it on everything from kitchen surfaces to toilets to brightening up your windows. I mentioned above that you should not use it on stone or grout surfaces, though, and for good reason. Even diluted in water, the acid in vinegar can permanently etch granite and marble surfaces if the vinegar isn’t completely wiped up. In that case, use an eco-friendly granite & marble cleaner. Also, for stains on sinks and surfaces, consider sprinkling on baking powder, giving it a good scrub, and then rinsing it off completely before using this spray. Here are some other natural home products that you could make and use:

• How to Make Homemade Dish Soap (from scratch)
• Natural Beeswax Furniture Polish Recipe
• Liquid Soap Recipes
• Homemade Beeswax Firestarters
• Buy Liquid Castile Soap