Budget Friendly All Natural Floor Cleaner Recipe - Less than $1.50 per gallon! (2024)

Using the wrong cleaners or mopping solution can ruin your floors or harm your family. This DIY floor cleaner takes care of both issues! With only natural ingredients, it’s great on all floors and safe around kids and pets!

Finding the right cleaners for your home can be harder than it might seem. If you are sensitive to certain ingredients, have allergies, asthma or are a health conscious mom who simply doesn’t want harsh chemicals near your family, you’ve likely tried every mopping solution on the market; except maybe a DIY floor cleaner like this one.

I know I have. For me, it is an allergy issue. I have significant allergies to artificial fragrances. I am allergic to bleach and other ingredients that most – even most of the so-called natural- cleaning products have.

I break out, I can’t breathe and it’s generally a very unpretty site. That’s how and why I began using this homemade floor cleaner recipe and stopped relying on the store so much almost ten years ago.

What is the Best Thing to Use to Clean Floors?

If you want a natural DIY floor cleaner, it is obviously best to stay away from anything that isn’t made with natural ingredients. Because of this, this cleaning solution uses white vinegar, essential oils, castile soap and other natural ingredients.

The combo is both great at cleaning dirt and grime but is also easy on all floor types including laminate floors, vinyl, hardwood floors and tile floors.

Where to Buy Essential Oils for DIY Floor Cleaner?

For me, I buy my essential oils one place and only one place; Simply Earth.

Not only are they affordable, but they are triple (and independently!) verified for purity. In other words, I see no reason to go broke buying the more “famous” EO’s when I can get a product that – to me at least – seems to be far superior in quality.

Settle down if you use those oils. You do you, Boo. I’ll do me.

I also really like the fact that a portion of every purchase from Simply Earth goes to fight human trafficking.

For Six Dollar Family readers that want to try Simply Earth, you can do so HERE. Order the monthly recipe box and use our exclusive coupon code 6DOLLARFAMFREE and you’ll score a FREE bonus box ($44 value) with your box full of accessories to help you make the recipes in your box (and then some). You’ll also get access to the $250 Essential Oil hero course, a $40 e-gift card good on your next order and MORE!

Are DIY Cleaners Effective?

These ingredients and the combo they make work to not only clean your floors but to disinfect them as well. White vinegar has been found almost as effective as bleach at disinfecting. Almost, but for the average home, it should be good enough to kill most bacteria that comes in and out. Lemon essential oil and tea tree essential oil have tested as antibacterial and antiviral as well.

But…as Brandy reminded us in the 90’s, almost doesn’t count in a world filled with new viruses and such when it comes to homemade cleaners. So to help with that and for cleaning reasons, we have mixed this DIY floor cleaner with rubbing alcohol. The combo of the other ingredients with the rubbing alcohol ensures that your cleaning solution will remove both dirt and any bacteria, viruses or mold/mildew.

What Can I Put in My Mop Water to Make My House Smell Good?

This DIY floor cleaner smells amazing! Mopping your home with it will absolutely make your home smell good. Both white vinegar and baking soda are incredibly effective at removing odors and freshening the air.

However, with that said, if you prefer a stronger scent, you can add a few more drops of essential oil. You can add different essential oils as well. Lavender essential oil pairs very well with lemon oil. Sweet orange oil is another great pair.

If you do add more essential oil, be sure to add a few more cups of warm water to the mixture in your bucket so your liquids are diluted properly to be safe.

How Do I Make My Mop Smell Fresh?

After you mop your floors with this DIY floor cleaner, keeping it smelling fresh should be a little bit easier. The same ingredients that make up the homemade floor cleaner recipe will also help to keep your mop smelling great with only a bit of aftercare needed when you’re done mopping.

If you use a microfiber mop, rinse it in hot water until the water runs clean. Then, clean it with a few drops of original blue Dawn or another gentle liquid dish soap. Rinse the mop again and allow it to fully dry.

Do You Have to Rinse Floors After Mopping with Vinegar?

Well that would defeat the purpose of an easy homemade cleaner, wouldn’t it?

In other words, no. You do not have to rinse the floor when you mop with vinegar or this floor cleaner recipe.

Even if you’ve used it as a laminate floor cleaner or on linoleum floors, they will look their best by mopping and allowing it to dry.

However, if you use this cleaner recipe as a homemade wood floor cleaner, do not allow the floor to air dry. This could cause your floors to warp. Instead, work in one area at a time, mop and then dry the floor with a clean towel. After you have dried the floor, make a mixture of olive oil and lemon juice to use as a homemade floor polish.

Why Use Rubbing Alcohol in a Homemade Floor Cleaner?

I mentioned earlier that in this DIY floor cleaner, we add rubbing alcohol. This is done for two reasons and both of them help you out.

The first is as I said; we add the alcohol to help boost the disinfecting power of the mopping solution. As the other ingredients won’t disinfect more than 90% or so, adding alcohol will help boost that to 95% of germs or more.

If you really want to boost the disinfecting power of this DIY floor cleaner recipe, you can choose to use 70% Isopropyl alcohol. 90% is not recommended due to the fact that there are certain things that 90% is too strong to effectively kill.

I know. It makes no sense, but it’s true. Google. it.

Because isopropyl alcohol is pure alcohol, with no water content, you’ll want to test your floors first. Use a small amount in a spray bottle to test a very small area before mopping the whole floor to ensure you don’t ruin your floors.

The second reason is for its evaporation qualities. Alcohol evaporates at a faster rate than water. The mixture won’t cause it to poof right away, but it will help the floors dry steak free and a bit faster.

This is important since everyone in their uncle seems to be determined to walk on a freshly mopped floor. Faster drying – even if it’s only by a few minutes – is never a bad thing.

How to Make Floor Cleaner With Essential Oils