Answering Your Questions: Homemade Furniture Dusting Spray

One of my most favorite homemade cleaners that I use all the time is my homemade furniture dusting spray.  I’ve found it to be a wonderful replacement for the store bought dusting sprays and it saves money too!  It’s a total favorite at our house and I use it all the time.

Since first posting the recipe three years ago,  I’ve had readers ask many different questions about this homemade furniture dusting spray so I thought I would summarize some of these Frequently Asked Questions here and share what I’ve learned about this mixture over the years.

First of all, you can check out the original post here:  Homemade Furniture Dusting Spray Recipe.  The recipe makes a 16 oz batch for a spray bottle and is made of 1-3/4 cups water and 1/4 cup vinegar, with 2 teaspoons of olive oil and about 10 drops of lemon essential oil.

Let’s get on to the questions:

HOMEMADE DUSTING SPRAY FAQ

Q:  Do you have to use the essential oil in the recipe or can you leave it out if you’re trying to save money?

A:  Yes, you can leave out the essential oil if you don’t have any around or if you don’t want to spend the money because it’s just used for fragrance.  I think the fragrance adds a nice touch so I always use it.  If you’re trying to save money on essential oils, check out the Hobby Lobby craft stores if you have one in your area.  They have essential oils in the soap making section and you can use one of their 40% off coupons to bring your cost down.

Q:  So if the essential oil is just for fragrance, can I use other scents besides lemon?

A:   Yes, feel free to use other scents.  Lemon is my favorite for this spray and that’s why I made it part of the recipe, but you can substitute other essential oils like lavender if you prefer.

Q:  Can you substitute lemon juice for the lemon essential oil?

A:    Because the vinegar in the recipe is already acidic, I would be careful adding lemon juice too (which is also acidic).  If you want to use lemon juice, I would substitute it for the vinegar.   Another idea is to infuse your vinegar with scent using orange peels or lemon peels.  You can learn how to do that here:  How To Make Scented Vinegar.

Q:  Speaking of vinegar, can I substitute apple cider vinegar for the white distilled vinegar?

A:   I tried to research this and couldn’t come up with any definitive answer.   White distilled vinegar is usually the vinegar of choice in homemade cleaners, but I”m not sure why.  I think you could probably substitute apple cider vinegar if that’s all you had on hand because the acidity is about the same so that aspect of the mixture would not be affected.

Q:  Do I have to worry about the olive oil in the recipe going rancid?

A:   I don’t worry about this at all and it’s never been a problem.  It takes several years for olive oil to go rancid, and it’s really more an issue of taste which isn’t what we’re concerned with in this recipe.

Q:  The olive oil and water don’t stay mixed.  Is that OK?

A:   Yes, that’s to be expected because oil and water don’t mix.  You’ll see that the oil floats to the top.  I just shake the bottle often when doing my cleaning (which isn’t a big deal at all because the bottle is already in my hand).  The olive oil is nourishing to the wood so it’s an important part of the recipe even though it doesn’t stay mixed when the mixture is sitting still.

Q:  Has this caused any damage or wear-and-tear to your furniture?

A:   Nope.  My furniture is fine and in fact looks cleaner than when I used to use products like Pledge.

Q:  Can I use this in other places besides my wood furniture?

A:    I’ve been told this mixture works great on stainless steel.  I don’t have stainless steel appliances but have tried it on my sink and it did a fine job of shining it up.  I’ve also been asked if it could be used on a leather sofa and I think that would be OK too because the oil would be conditioning for the leather.  I’ve been asked about glass shelves, but I think the olive oil in the recipe would make glass streaky.  There’s been a few times I’ve squirted this on my hardwood floor to clean an area and felt it made the floor a little slippery (again, because of the olive oil), so I wouldn’t recommend this on floors.

I hope these answers have been helpful and if you’ve never given this homemade dusting spray a try, please mix some up today and give it a go!  I think you’ll like it as much as I do.