Easy 3 Ingredient Homemade Bleach

Easy 3 Ingredient Homemade Bleach Introduction 

Easy 3 Ingredient Homemade Bleach. I have been making my own laundry soap for years, and have, over time, completely cut out fabric softener, bleach, and many other either useless or toxic products in my home. 

Bleach is an excellent thing to cut out and stop buying in the store and start making your own! It is cheaper, easier, and non-toxic. 

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Have you tried making your own Easy 3 Ingredient Homemade Bleach? Come on in and let me tell you about it!

Why Make Your Own Easy 3 Ingredient Homemade Bleach 

Chlorine bleach is not only toxic, it can be fatal, and has a multitude of health hazards. It can damage the esophagus and stomach. It causes irritation to your skin and eyes, possibly causing burns. Inhaling bleach fumes can damage the lungs. 

Breathing in high amounts of chlorine can lead to a buildup of fluid in the lungs and severe shortness of breath that can lead to death if left untreated. 

Bleach should never be mixed with vinegar, because it will create highly toxic chlorine gas and cause severe burns both internally and externally. 

Mixing bleach with ammonia (another highly toxic chemical) causes a similar reaction and can burn the lungs. 

Mixing bleach with rubbing alcohol makes highly toxic chloroform. Mixing with hydrogen peroxide can make a potentially explosive chemical reaction. 

Chlorine bleach is corrosive to metals as well. 

This is actually really scary when you think about it! And people use this to clean something as delicate as clothing? This inspired me to find a much safer alternative to traditional chlorine bleach, and I must say, the results are incredible. I am very pleased with this Easy 3 Ingredient Homemade Bleach.

Easy 3 Ingredient Homemade Bleach 

To make 1 quart or 4 cups 

Distilled Water, 2 ½ cups make your own distilled water with this machine

Hydrogen Peroxide, 1 ¼ cups 

Lemon Juice, ¼ cup 

To make one gallon or 4 quarts 

Distilled water, 10 cups 

Hydrogen Peroxide, 5 cups 

Lemon Juice, 1 cup 

Directions 

Add all of the ingredients together and swirl or stir to combine. I like to put mine in a mixing bowl, but a glass jar works perfectly as well. I prefer a simple mixing bowl, because I make mine to use at that moment. I generally don’t store it long-term, or pre-make it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make it ahead of time yourself. 

To store, store at room temperature in a dark place for a longer shelf life. For the longest shelf life, use an amber-colored jar like this. This should last for about a month in a clear jar, or 3 months in an amber colored far. Light exposure weakens the potency of hydrogen peroxide and the amber colored glass prevents light from entering the bottle. 

Because light affects the potency of hydrogen peroxide and weakens it, that is why I only make it as needed. Which has worked very well for me so far. If you are someone who has a larger household and does laundry daily, you will likely be better off making a larger batch and storing it. But it all depends on the needs of your specific household.

Easy 3 Ingredient Homemade Bleach Notes 

You can use fresh lemon juice, or a store-bought bottle. I’ve done both, and they work equally well for this. I like having lemon juice in my pantry, so I always have some on hand. But I almost always have lemons to squeeze fresh as well. So it really depends on your preference and what you’ll use without wasting anything. A fresh lemon has about 3 tablespoons of juice inside of it. 

If you have fresh lemons at home, and they are in danger of spoiling, this is an excellent way to use them up and make sure that you reduce food waste and save yourself even more money that way.

For Laundry 

To whiten and brighten towels, add 2 cups of bleach over the top before running a normal cycle. 

You can also soak whatever you are washing in Easy 3 Ingredient Homemade Bleach as well. I use these pads for my period, and this bleach is perfect for them. It gets everything clean, without hurting it. Which is something I love. Too many times we do more harm than good simply by trying to clean things, and it shortens the lifespan of our clothing and any type of fabric materials.

For an extra white boost 

Add in ½ of a cup of baking soda to the laundry, add it in, and then add in 2 cups of bleach. Run your laundry through a soak setting, then wash normally. 

For Cleaning 

You can whiten enamel sinks by sprinkling baking soda and this homemade bleach alternative over the top. Use a dish scrubber like this one to remove stains and scuff marks. Rinse with hot water when you’re done, and reveal a sparkling and bright sink. If you have extra tough stains that are stubborn, soak overnight and then repeat this process. 

To make a powerful cleaning scrub for tile and grout, make a paste with this homemade bleach and baking soda and then use a scrubber like this to buff away any stains or grime. 

To clean stains on countertops, simply soak a cloth in the homemade bleach and place over the top of the stain. All the bleach time to do its work and then wipe it away. I’ve never timed this one, I just start there when I’m cleaning, leave the towel on and forget about it, and then come back to it at the end of my cleaning, and it is always ready to go.

I always think “fix it and forget about it,” like the saying people use when it comes to crock pots and slow cooking foods. That’s my method, fix it and forget about it. But the point is, I can’t recommend a specific amount of time to leave the cloth or towel on the stain. 

Why I Love This 

One of the things that I love about this homemade bleach is that it doesn’t hurt colors. I’ve washed my husband’s sweat stained shirts in it, and it gets them clean. We use reusable cloth toilet paper in our house, as it is much more sustainable than traditional paper products. But they get stained, even with consistent washing. I like to soak mine in this bleach for about 15 minutes before washing, and it works perfectly. 

I’ve done experiments with this, looking for stains and color fades. Like washing a black shirt, and soaking one sleeve in the bleach. I’ve washed several cloth toilet paper pieces after soaking, and knowing where to look for the stains, and they were gone. It really does work. Which I’ll admit, I was skeptical at first, but I’ve been very pleased with the results. 

Breathing this homemade bleach in isn’t going to hurt my lungs. I smell it every time I make it, to be perfectly honest. It’s nice to know that smelling a household cleaner isn’t going to hurt me, not like chlorine bleach will. 

It also doesn’t dry my hands out or hurt my skin the same way chlorine bleach does. When I soak anything by hand, I like to get in there and move it around, agitate it, squeeze it, and so on. Just like I would if I was hand-washing my clothing instead of simply pre-soaking it. This bleach doesn’t cause any kind of harmful reactions to my skin when I do this. 

I personally don’t like anything in my home that can harm kids or pets. Because they both get into everything and something is going to happen somewhere when it comes to harmful chemicals in the home. I much prefer homemade options like this, where it isn’t toxic to simply breathe it in.

This is also a much more inexpensive option than traditional chlorine bleach, and every item is things I already have in my pantry. I love it when I can make whatever I need when I need it. Last night, I ran out of baking powder, and made more just by going to my pantry. Saving money always makes the homemaker in me very happy.

Everything that is in this Easy 3 Ingredient Homemade Bleach are items I have in my pantry already, and use for many other things. As a prepper, I am a big fan of multi-use items, and every single ingredient in this homemade bleach qualifies as having multiple uses.

Easy 3 Ingredient Homemade Bleach Discussion 

Have you tried making this Easy 3 Ingredient Homemade Bleach? Are you a fan? Let me know your thoughts in the comments! 

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