Vinegar For .. Everything?
What Is It?
In relation to cleaning vinegar is a weak acid that is mostly harmless (unless mixed with chlorine bleach) and can help with hard water residue and even coffee stains providing they are both mild cases.
The Myth(s)
There are too many to list in detail but I’ll take a crack at it:
- Mix vinegar with baking soda to clean a greasy oven… –
- Mix vinegar with baking soda to clean carpet stains
- Mix vinegar with baking soda … period for a lot of stuff
- Use vinegar to clean windows…
- Use vinegar to remove pet stains and odor
- Vinegar is great for cleaning hardwood floors
Science
- For everything but windows: Vinegar is a mild acid while baking soda is an alkaline (both on the opposite sides of the pH scale). Mixing them actually is counterproductive and just not very smart
- It does ok on windows but I’ll stick to Windex
- Pet stains as in urine with odor…? No. It’s a mild acid which, while chemically correct for removing urine (acid removes an alkaline such as urine) it’s just too weak unless you have all day
- Keep vinegar as far away from your hardwood floors as possible. Overtime it will wear down floor finish unevenly resulting in permanently streaky floors (until they are refinished)
You’ll even find some cleaning products claiming to have added the “power of vinegar” but it’s usually marketing and, just like a bad health supplement, the manufacturer put in trace amounts of vinegar that wouldn’t do anything even if vinegar worked for that purpose.
Stick to vinegar for windows and remember there are many safe alternatives to vinegar that have a little science behind them.