Vinegar as a cleaning solution - It stinks

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The Last Stand said:
Borax, does that help with mildew smells? With the humidity now, my clothes feel more musty.
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Don't know, haven't tested. Usually for musty smells I just wash it 2-3 times on heavy, and dry with high heat. If it's an everyday problem instead of a per-item problem, you may need to do something different like change detergents, or get one of those washing machine drum cleaning packets.
 
I think it has its uses (especially when removing light oxidation) but why not just use isopropyl alcohol for most things? I wipe down my phone and keyboard/mouse with a lightly damp paper towel with that on it every morning and it seems to work. It has an expiration date but technically it never goes bad, the alcohol just evaporates and it probably isn't good for medical purposes after that point. For cleaning it still works.
 
A fun trick for funky shoes but I wouldn't use it for other clothes. you get paper towls and douse them a bit with white vinegar and shove them in the shoes then put them outside under the sun for a day and you pick up the next day, the vinegar and BO funk in the shoes will both be eliminated and you can re-use your shoes without worrying about any smelly microbial contaminants. You can also use a solution of water and vinegar to clean out mold from people taking to many hot showers without turning the fan on or leaving a window open(constant annoyance on my end), you just spray and wipe till it's gone just remember to have a window open and fan on to even out the intense vinegar smell, specific bleach brands work as well but I always preferred vinegar for dealing with mold(mostly the light orange wall mold usually called "pink mold") In summary vinegar is really great for dealing with bacterial contaminants compared to some other heavy duty products but isn't ideal as a cure-all for most dailyware things and indoor objects lol
 
Vinegar works well against fungus and mold, so I use it to rinse my water jugs and filtering pitcher (without the filter) once in a while. It's not toxic so I don't have to worry about leaving trace amounts of it when I'm done.
It works well enough for superficial rust, just let it soak over night.
 
I buy vinegar by the gallon. 1 cup vinegar, big squirt of Dawn dish soap, and distilled water in a spray bottle. My go to cleaner. I use the same thing(with hot tap water) to clean my floors.
 
Vinegar is a weak acid, which makes it great for simple disinfecting or killing plants. It is great for taking care of mineral deposits (you can use it to remove lime or calcium scaling, a neat trick I recommend if you live in an area with hard water is pouring some white vinegar or undiluted vinegar - the high concentration kind you can buy at a hardware store - into a plastic baggie and rubber banding it onto your faucet head or shower head etc, let it sit and the chemical reaction will remove the buildup completely without damaging the metal, then just scrub with some Barkeeper's friend or Ajax powder). For the same reason you should NEVER under any circumstances use it on natural mineral stone counter surfaces because it can ruin them.

If you mix it with baking soda (which is a common old wives' tale for cleaning toilets) you're just making sodium acetate, which doesn't do anything except bubble as the reaction occurs.

It's a great, cheap way to clean a lot of things, make sure to dilute it. You could say the same about ammonia, they both get a bad rap because they stink but you can get them really cheaply and they're very effective. They don't do shit for cleaning grease or oil, for that use something like Dawn dish detergent. I'm a firm believer in everyone keeping simple chemicals on hand for various practical reasons, rubbing/isopropyl alcohol, ammonia, bleach, hydrogen peroxide, cleaning or white vinegar etc
 
I have a clear plastic tote with a clear lid. I put lightly rusted nuts, bolts, and other hardware in it with vinegar and leave it in the sun for a week. Comes out clean. Zero effort way to clean up random hardware. I don't think the UV is doing anything, its just keeping the liquid warm to help break up some of the grease.
 
It works great as a fabric softener. A small amount of white vinegar won't smell once the washer is done. Don't replace your detergent of course.
I use vinegar for cleaning almost everything, but it's especially good at streak-free windows and glass surfaces.
 
During the black plague in Europe they had little hand sanitizer stations everywhere filled with vinegar for people to clean themselves. The Romans would even wipe their asses with a rag or sponge on a stick that soaks in vinegar all day.
 
I mostly use vinegar for things where I would use hydrogen peroxide but I ran out, and I never run out of vinegar because it's not as good as hydrogen peroxide so the huge bottles I get at costco are always there.
 
Vinegar is good for cleaning limescale, light rust and anything where a weak organic acid would do the job. It won't do anything to thick limescale or rust deposits, and won't do anything to clean nonpolar dirt. It also needs to be washed away with water after use, you can't just leave it to evaporate, that will leave a residue of acid on the surface which will damage the material it's left on and irritate skin when touched. You can't just leave it on like windex, it won't evaporate.

Here's the basics. You clean polar dirt with polar solvents, nonpolar with nonpolar. Polar solvents won't touch nonpolar stuff, and vice versa. Try cleaning grease with water, or fly shit with denatired alcohol. Won't work.
Windex is kinda in-between, it cleans polar stuff good but also cleans light nonpolar dirt like light grease or oil due to its alcohol content. It's the best for general cleaning of everything, not just windows. It doesn't leave streaks because it doesn't have mineral residue like tap water, it evaporates faster than water.
If windex won't clean it, it's probably nonpolar, like a grease or oil. Gasoline (strong and cheap but smells and toxic) or denatured alcohol (smells less but more expensive and weaker than gasoline). Maybe degreaser if it's just a thin layer. If you're cleaning car parts, degreaser doesn't work good on thick grease and grime, gasoline will dissolve those.
Mineral deposits and rust are the exception, for those you need an acid. From weak acids like vinegar or citric acid to strong acids like phosphoric, sulfuric, hydrochloric. For house cleaning, thin limescale can be cleaned with vinegar. Thick limescale can be cleaned with 20-30% phosphoric that's usually sold in the hardware store as concentrated limescale cleaner. Sulfuric is good for cleaning aluminum, copper, brass and bronze, it brightens the metal too. Hydrochloric is good for cleaning thick rust but it's not good for general cleaning as it leaves behind chlorides which accelerate rusting after the acid is washed away, the chlorides need to be washed away with another acid like phosphoric, then the acid neutralized with a baking soda solution.
When working with acids always wear nitrile gloves (not latex). Immediately wash any acid that splashes onto skin. Neutralize the item being washed with a baking soda solution, otherwise any leftover acid will keep dissolving the metal and damage it.
 
BondoBob said:
they both get a bad rap because they stink but you can get them really cheaply and they're very effective.
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As a few have mentioned above, cut the vinegar with a bit of water to weaken smell. The other thing I have found to be extremely effective is adding some sort of essential oil you like to the mixture. Amazing for cleaning (wood or other non-carpet) floors and actually ends up making your house smell lovely.
 
You can use lye(sodium hydroxide) to clean grease a lot better than vinegar and soap alone. That's what I use on tough grease on my cooking sheets. The hydroxide will react with the grease and saponify it, turning it into soap which also helps to get grease off. It'll save you a lot on soap for anything that's really greasy. The issue is that it will react with metals and burn you too if it's concentrated enough so be careful with it and don't leave any residue of it on your pans. Wash your pans off thoroughly after using it.
Rapesputin said:
It's also good as a weedkiller
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It's entirely dependent on the plants for that. Many kinds of plants(in fact there were odd experiments growing plants in the dark using vinegar before, here's an article on it) can actually consume vinegar, but the problem is with pH. If your soil is already really acidic then vinegar may not do much to the weeds or could even help them and so something like lye(sodium hydroxide) would work better in that case. Dilute vinegar is actually useful for helping blueberries if your soil is too basic. If their soil pH is too high then they have issues getting iron.
NH-8340 said:
I think it has its uses (especially when removing light oxidation)
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Phosphoric acid can also work with rust too. That's what'll make coke clean rust, which you might've seen in some videos. Most sodas use citric acid instead of phosphoric acid. Even found a short comparing vinegar and coke:
BondoBob said:
If you mix it with baking soda (which is a common old wives' tale for cleaning toilets) you're just making sodium acetate, which doesn't do anything except bubble as the reaction occurs.
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It's actually the thing that makes vinegar potato chips have their flavor. If you want to make your own flavored potato chips then baking soda and white vinegar is all you need. Similarly you can mix citric acid and baking soda to get sodium citrate which is what is used for some cheese sauces and American cheese to emulsify it. Emulsifiers are not good for you though.

A bonus cleaning thing: Lemon juice is great for cleaning fish stink off of your hands or any equipment. I've tried baking soda, rubbing alcohol, soap and none of that worked too well(baking soda+alcohol was as best as I got before but I was using it as an abrasive). Lemon/lime juice worked perfectly. I figure it's the citric acid in it, but just some food for thought if you ever go fishing or have a husband who does and hate the smell.
 
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