Making your all-purpose cleaner is a great way to make your dollar stretch! Here’s our favorite way to create an all-purpose cleaner at home.
Homemade orange peel cleaner is a great introductory DIY to making your household products. It’s so easy to throw together!
You may have heard about orange peel cleaner as an alternative to chemical cleaners. You may be looking for a way to stretch your household goods budget. Whatever your situation, this is a great recipe to keep on hand for future use.
Homemade Orange Peel Infused Vinegar
Why Make Orange Peel Vinegar Cleaner
Orange peel vinegar cleaner is vinegar infused with orange peels. What does that mean?
Infusion is steeping plants in vinegar to extract the properties of the plant into the vinegar. In our case, orange peels.
Orange peels, like other citrus peels, have a wonderful scent. They’re also capable of driving insects away. If you let your orange peels infuse for 4 weeks or so, they may even overpower the smell of vinegar!
If you do have a lingering vinegar smell in your homemade cleaner, don’t fret. You can know that vinegar is doing its job!
Vinegar’s prize point of redemption is its acidity. It can easily work its way through any build-up, soap scum, and grime.
Vinegar is also known to kill some bacteria and viruses. This likely comes from the acetic acid found in diluted vinegar.
The biggest pro for making your orange peel vinegar cleaner? The cost!
At most, your extra cost is the glass spray bottle or glass jar you will need to steep your orange peels and vinegar. If you’re already using vinegar and buying oranges, that’s a very small price to pay!
How to Make Homemade Orange Peel Infused Vinegar
Making orange peel vinegar is simple.
As you eat through your oranges, reserve your peels with all flesh of the fruit removed.
Add your peels to a mason jar and store them in the fridge or freezer until you’re ready to use. Fill a glass container (I prefer a quart-size jar) and loosely pack your orange peels inside.
Fill the rest of the container with white vinegar.
Using either a glass mason jar weight or a sandwich bag with a weight (like cleaned rocks or beans), make sure your orange peels are submerged beneath your vinegar. This will ensure they don’t mold!
Cover with a lid and store on your kitchen counter or in your pantry for 2 to 4 weeks.
After your infusion period is done, strain your orange peel-infused vinegar into a clean glass container for storage. You may use a coffee filter for a cleaner result, but I’ve found a fine mesh strainer does the trick just fine. Your goal is to remove as much of the orange’s white pith as possible.
Discard your leftover orange peels.
Your infused vinegar will have a visible orange hue to it. If you leave your infusion to sit closer to 4 weeks, it may be darker. If you leave your infusion for only 2 weeks, it may be lighter.
The color may also depend on how many orange peels you packed into your jar.
When you’re ready to use your infused vinegar, fill a glass spray bottle with vinegar only and use as desired.
If your infusion seems strong, or you don’t like the smell of vinegar, consider diluting your solution with equal parts water. This will make your cleaner go a long way!
I typically store my citrus-infused vinegar in a wide-mouth mason jar in my pantry. Store out of direct sunlight. Don’t forget to label your jars!
Please note that vinegar is not suitable for use on certain types of stone, like marble, granite, or limestone. This is because the acid in the vinegar will erode the minerals in the natural stone.
The same goes for hardwood floors. Some recommend against using vinegar on hardwood floors because the acidity in the vinegar will erode the wood. Others say vinegar is safe to use, so long as the vinegar doesn’t sit for an extended period.
You know the materials in your home. But for the sake of longevity, it never hurts to ask around for best practices!
When you’re ready to start a new batch, simply repeat the process!
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How to Use Homemade Orange Peel Infused Vinegar
I prefer to use my vinegar as an all-purpose cleaning solution around the house.
However, I also use it on a multitude of kitchen surfaces. The exterior of my dishwasher and oven, the exterior of my coffee machine, and even the interior of my dishwasher! Once a month I find this solution is a great way to keep odor and build up at bay.
Just remember – each machine has its cleaning requirements. So be sure to follow factory-recommended cleaning solutions to prolong the life of your machine.
You can also use this to clean your garbage disposal. In my machine, I combine baking soda and vinegar in the drain. Let the combination react and sit for about 10 minutes. Then, pour hot water over the disposal while the disposal is on.
Alternatives to Orange Peel Infused Vinegar
Some like to add a rosemary sprig to their orange peels to enhance the scent of their infusion. If that’s something you’d like to try, add a sprig of rosemary to your loosely packed orange peels before filling your glass jar with white vinegar.
If you don’t like the scent of orange, try a different citrus!
This recipe would work just as well with grapefruit peels or lemon peels. Citrus-infused vinegar of any scent can make a popular household cleaner!
You can also consider swapping out this entire process for essential oils. No infusion is necessary! Combine vinegar and essential oils in a glass spray bottle.
You do need to note that essential oils and water don’t mix. So if you’re looking to mask the smell of vinegar, this may not be the option for you!
Other natural cleaning products include something like premade cleaners from essential oil companies or castile soap and sal suds.
We are huge fans of castile soap and sal suds in our home. I use sal suds in my homemade dish soap recipe and I use castile soap in my homemade foaming hand soap.
I love these as alternatives to commercially produced soap because I know I’m avoiding nasty chemicals. I’m also using simple ingredients that are multipurpose. I love being able to stretch my dollars wherever I can!
Other Cost-Savings Homemaking Tips
Making a natural cleaner at home is one of the many ways I can make a dollar stretch in my home!
I also love to go thrifting and use what I have in my pantry, too. I have so many blog posts about both of these topics!
The most concise post I have is 23 Tips for Living Off of One Income (Without Credit Cards).
Frugal living and cooking from scratch are both tips on the list. But I also include starting side hustles to gain extra income, not wasting your money on single-use products, and buying in bulk where you can afford it.
Check out this blog post for more tips!
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Orange Peel Vinegar Recipe Card
Homemade Orange Peel Infused Vinegar
Making your all-purpose cleaner is a great way to make your dollar stretch! Here's our favorite way to create an all-purpose cleaner at home.
Instructions
- Reserve your peels with all flesh of the fruit removed. Add your peels to a mason jar and store them in the fridge or freezer until you're ready to use.
- Fill a quart-size mason jar and loosely pack your orange peels inside.
- Fill the rest of the container with white vinegar.
- Use a weight (or a sandwich baggie filled with dried beans) and weigh down your orange peels so they're submerged below the vinegar. This prevents the orange peels from molding.
- Cover with a lid and store on your kitchen counter or in your pantry for 2 to 4 weeks.
- Strain your orange peel-infused vinegar into a clean glass container for storage. Be sure to remove as much of the white pith as possible.
- Discard your leftover orange peels.
- Store out of direct sunlight.
- When you're ready to use, funnel a cup or so of your infusion into a glass mason jar. To dilute your mixture, combine with equal parts distilled water.
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