The Many Uses for Vinegar

As a prepper hopefully you realize the many uses for vinegar. Vinegar is something that every prepper should have a few gallons of put back. The uses for it are endless from cleaning to first aid. I found a website that has over 100 uses for vinegar. I will list a few below but to view the full list check out this link. This is worth printing out and incorporating some of it into your preparedness plan. You can do laundry, clean bathrooms and kitchens without harsh chemicals by only using vinegar and water.

Garden Uses:
-Kill weeds. Spray full strength on growth until plants have starved.

Animal Uses:
-Remove skunk odor from a dog. Rub fur with full strength vinegar; rinse.

Vehicle Uses:
-Keep car windows frost free. Coat the windows the night before with a solution of three parts vinegar to one part water.

Health Uses:
-Relieve sunburn by lightly rubbing it with vinegar. You may have to reapply.

Laundry Uses:
-Get rid of lint in clothes. Add 1/2 cup of vinegar to the rinse cycle.

Kitchen Uses:
-Put vinegar on a cloth and let sit on the back of your kitchen faucet and it removes hard water stains.

Bathroom Uses:
-Kill germs on bathroom fixtures by using one part vinegar to one part water in a spray bottle. Spray the bathroom fixtures and floor, then wipe clean.

Miscellaneous Uses:
-Clean eyeglasses by wiping each lens with a drop of vinegar.

For many more vinegar uses click here!

Homemade Cleaning Products

Scarecrow posted this on Ontario Preppers Network and it is too good to pass up. These are recipes to create your own home cleaning products. Most store bought cleaners are over-priced bottles of chemicals which can be replaced by a vinegar solution cleaner. These homemade cleaners will save you lots of money in the long run; I'm sure most people would be surprised to see how much they spend on cleaning products each year if you totaled it all up.

Laundry Detergent
1 bar white soap, finely grated
1 cup washing soda
1 cup borax
1/2 cup baking soda
Mix all ingredients together. Use 1-2 tablespoons for each load.

Everyday Surface Cleaner (works on anything)
1 part water
1 part vinegar
Combine in spray bottle

Heavy Duty Surface Cleaner (for grimy messes)
1/4 cup white vinegar
1 cup water
1 tsp borax
10 drops orange essential oil (optional)
5 drops lemon essential oil (optional)
Mix all ingredients in spray bottle, spray on mess and wipe away.

Glass Cleaner
1/2 cup ammonia
2 cups rubbing alcohol
1 tsp dish washing liquid
water
Mix ammonia and rubbing alcohol in a 1 gallon container. Fill almost to the top with water. Add Dish washing liquid and mix. Top off with water if needed.

Carpet Cleaner (test a small area first)
1 part laundry detergent
2 parts hot water
Scrub into carpets and let dry completely - Vacuum.

Floor cleaner
3/4 cup white vinegar
1 gallon hot water
Combine ingredients. Mop or sponge onto floor. Use towels to dry floor immediately.

Toilet Cleaner
Sprinkle with baking soda and lemon juice
Let sit about 10 minutes and scrub with a toilet brush

Oven Cleaner
1 tsp liquid dish soap
1 tsp lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp bleach
1 qt warm water
Mix all ingredients, spread over oven surfaces. Allow mixture to sit for 45 minutes. Scrub and rinse well.

Bathtub Stains
2 lemons
1/4 can cream of tartar
Wet surface. Sprinkle with cream of tarter. Rub with cut surface of lemon.

Laundry Pretreatment
1/2 cup vinegar
1/2 cup ammonia
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup laundry detergent
Combine all ingredients, mix in spray bottle. Let mixture soak into clothes for 5 minutes, then wash as usual.

How To Make Homemade Soap

Here is another post from a few months back by "S". It was submitted by the same "S" who wrote the article on how to brain tan hides. Bullseye posted this and it's another great write up from our friend "S". I did some slight editing on this article too, I'm sure "S" wouldn't mind, I didn't change the content. Thanks to "S" for this article!

How To Make Homemade Soap

There are only two ingredients required to make soap and yet soap making can be a very time consuming and difficult project. In order to make soap you will need fat and lye. Any type of fat will work but it must be cleaned by a process known as rendering. The fat is placed in a large pot and allowed to melt. Any meat, gristle or hair will sink to the bottom as the temperature rises. The liquid fat is carefully ladled off and stored. If the fat you were using was from a pig those deep fried pieces of skin would be called crackling’s and were considered by many to be a delicacy.

The second item needed is lye. In the early 1900’s lye, in a dry form, could be found in almost every general store in America. Today it is not so easy to find. Lye made from wood ash is called potash and can be made easily at home. You will need two containers. One large container (the bigger the better) and a smaller container. A 55 gallon plastic one is best and a drywall bucket is large enough for the smaller one. The larger container needs to be placed on a stable platform higher than the smaller one is tall. Gravity will do the most of the work.

Into the large bucket you will place a layer of packed straw. You will then add ash from a wood fire. The ash from fruit trees and hardwoods will produce the strongest potash. Some of the old time soap makers would use only one type of ash. They learned that certain species of wood produced the strongest potash. The stronger the potash the better the soap will be. About a gallon of water is then added to the large container. A small hole is put in the bottom of the bucket and the smaller bucket placed underneath. Some people allow the water to sit in the larger bucket before its drained off. A cork or stopper may be placed in the hole. Add a small amount of water daily until you have a working potash barrel. About a half a gallon will do.

As the water drips down through the ash and straw it leaches out the alkaline chemicals in the ash. That is what potash is, a basic acid. Acid when combined with fat produces soap. It’s a basic chemical reaction. The problem with making soap is the unpredictable strength of the potash. Potash suitable for making soap should be able to float a raw egg so that only a portion of the shell about the size of quarter should shows above the liquid. If the potash does not float the egg it is poured back into the large container and allowed to drip through again. It takes up to a week or more to get a gallon of potash. Ashes are continually added to the larger container.

Eventually the large container will need to be emptied and new straw and ashes added. Once you have potash strong enough to float an egg you are ready to begin the time consuming job of boiling the potash and fat together until it reacts sufficiently to make soap. Determining how much fat to add to potash is the difficult part. Too much potash and you will be stirring the mixture over a hot fire or stove for many hours, too little and you will end up with useless fat. It is better to have too much potash than too little. The most commonly used ratio is 1:1. Equal amounts of both fat and strong potash. The soap that you are used to seeing is not what this process will produce.

Until salt became an inexpensive item all home made soap was the consistency of jelly. Homemade soap of yesterdays era was like shower gel is to us today. To make soap hard salt must be added at the end of the process. The addition of salt allows the soap to set. If you add salt to your soap mixture you will need to place it in a pan, box or mold to harden. If you do not add salt you can use any container to hold your soap. Just remember that its easier to dip the liquid soap than to pour so choose a container with a large top opening.

Ground herbs, nut hulls, scented oils and colorings can be added once the process is complete but before you pour the soap into your containers. Hardened soaps are usually allowed to cure for a couple of weeks. Once cured they are cut and ready for use.

Contributed by "S"

Discuss this at the KPN Forum

Homemade Toothpaste Recipe

After realizing that fluoride is bad for you, and that using conventional toothpaste which is made from fluoride is bad, I started making my own homemade toothpaste. I have been using this toothpaste recipe for a few months now and it works great. It makes your mouth feel fresh, tastes good, it's cheap, and makes me feel better knowing I'm taking better care of my teeth. Traditionally toothpaste was made from mainly baking soda. It has only been the last few decades that toothpaste has fully switched over to fluoride based. Now when you're shopping for a new bottle of toothpaste, you would be hard pressed to find a toothpaste without fluoride. There is a company that makes a fluoride free toothpaste that is sold at some Wal-Marts. Tom's of Maine sells toothpaste without fluoride added that can be purchased from Wal-Mart for less than $5 a bottle.

The Tom's toothpaste is great, but somewhat expensive. Making your own toothpaste will help your teeth, your wallet, and give you the knowledge to make your own toothpaste if you were unable to purchase any from the store, due to a disaster. The homemade toothpaste recipe is below:

Ingredients:
-6 teaspoons baking soda
-1/3 teaspoon salt
-4 teaspoons glycerin
-15 drops peppermint or wintergreen extract

Directions:
Mix thoroughly. Should be a toothpaste consistency. Store in an airtight container.

The baking soda, salt, and peppermint flavor can all be purchased at your local Wal-Mart. Baking soda is around $1 a box, most should already have plenty of salt, and the wintergreen flavoring is in the arts and crafts section of Wal-Mart; 2 small bottles for $2. I was unable to find glycerin at Wal-Mart and ended up finding some at Rite-Aid. It was around $4 for a bottle, which brings the total price up to around $7. For $7 worth of ingredients and a couple minutes of your time to mix it up, the ingredients will last you months. I have been making it for around 3 months now and I'm still using the $7 worth of ingredients I purchased when I started.

I got this recipe from PioneerThinking.com. There are a lot of other great recipes for homemade products on their site including a good mouthwash recipe.

Here is a picture of my ingredients, and what the toothpaste looks like. For best results, use a butter knife to spread it on your toothbrush and keep it sealed in an airtight container.