Warning: you may be falling for vinegar cleaning myths
Vinegar belongs in every household cleaning arsenal, but you need to beware of vinegar cleaning myths.
It’s not really a cleaner or a disinfectant. Combining it with other common natural cleaners can render it useless.
In fact, “natural cleaners” is a near-mythical phrase. No definition of “natural” has been made official. It can mean whatever the person using wants it to mean.
I mean those old-fashioned and versatile cleaners like borax, baking soda, or salt. The kind of cleaners that make such a great alternative to the heavily advertised products in the cleaning aisle.
What is vinegar?
Vinegar results from a double fermentation of some kind of sugar.
The first fermentation makes alcohol. Think wine.
The second fermentation changes the alcohol to acetic acid.
Most vinegars you’d use in food preparation come from this double fermentation process.
Distilled white vinegar, the kind you use in cleaning, comes from diluting laboratory-produced acetic acid in water. It’s more acidic than other vinegars.
Some people with more environmental enthusiasm than knowledge approve of vinegar because they think it’s not a chemical. Water is a chemical. All the ingredients in your food and all your body fluids are chemicals. Well, so are the solid parts, for that matter.
So what kind of chemical is vinegar?
It’s an acidic solution with mainly acetic acid. Distilled white vinegar is about 5% acetic acid. With a pH of just over 2.0, it is a strong acid, corrosive to some surfaces.
It also contains volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The specific ones in vinegar apparently haven’t been tested for health effects, but VOCs in general cause respiratory problems. The Materials Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for vinegar recommends using a respirator if you spray it or use it in large quantities.
Vinegar cleaning myths, or how not to use vinegar for cleaning
Many sites that tout the virtues of vinegar imply that it’s an all-purpose cleaner. It’s versatile, but not that versatile.
Vinegar won’t work on ordinary dirt and grime.
For that you need soap. Chemically, soap results from treating fatty acids with a strong alkali. Its long and complicated molecular structure attracts water at one end and repels it at the other. To be more technical, a soap molecule has a hydrophilic end and a hydrophobic end.
The hydrophobic end binds with fats and oils, which are also hydrophobic. The hydrophilic end pulls the fats and oils into the water, along with the grime dissolved in them.
Soap also acts as a surfactant. That is, it reduces the surface tension of water to make it spread on a surface more easily. Vinegar’s less complicated chemistry does not bind with fats and oils. You know that from having to shake your salad dressing that oil and vinegar don’t mix any better than oil and water. Vinegar doesn’t act as a surfactant, either.
Vinegar and soap don’t work well together
Lots of recipes for home cleaners include both vinegar and liquid soap. Soap is alkaline and vinegar is acidic. Combined, they neutralize each other. Vinegar reverts the soap to its original oils. Soap cancels vinegar’s ability to cut through scum.
In combination, vinegar and soap make only a curdled mess, not useful for any purpose.
I have seen plenty of recipes that combine vinegar and either laundry or dish detergent. Since detergent is alkaline, it stands to reason that the two ingredients would weaken each other. At least vinegar doesn’t appear to curdle detergent.
Vinegar and baking soda don’t work well together
As we probably all learned in a school experiment, when you pour vinegar into soda, you get a fizzy eruption.
That volcano effect happens for the same reason vinegar curdles liquid soap. Vinegar is acid and soda is alkaline.
Chemically, the reaction that puts on such a spectacular display creates carbonic acid, an unstable compound.
The carbonic acid soon dissipates as carbon dioxide and water. The carbon dioxide escapes into the air until the mixture stops fizzing.
Nothing remains except a weak solution of sodium acetate in water. And that won’t clean anything.
Vinegar destroys some surfaces
Vinegar will etch your granite or marble countertops or stone floors. It will dissolve the wax on your hardwood floor or wood furniture.
It will damage the innards of your steam iron or electronics.
For that matter, vinegar works on some messes, but not others. It won’t take out blood stains or ink stains, for example. And if you spill a raw egg, vinegar will only coagulate it and make it harder to clean up.
Vinegar is not a disinfectant
Most vinegar cleaning myths do no harm, but relying on vinegar as a disinfectant is potentially unhealthy. Under laboratory conditions, it kills about 90% of germs. But a disinfectant must kill at least 99% of germs. Vinegar falls very short of that standard.
So there’s no point in rinsing vegetables with vinegar. Plain water works just as well.
Best cleaning with vinegar
Preparing to clean my microwave
If vinegar won’t clean dirt and grime, won’t work in combination with soap or soda, and won’t disinfect, what’s it good for?
Plenty.
I have looked at several sites with tips for how to clean with vinegar to find ones that don’t rely on any of the vinegar cleaning myths.
Generally speaking, use an alkaline cleaner like soap, soda, or borax for acidic messes and vinegar for alkalines.
Soap combines with minerals in the water to leave an alkaline soap scum behind. Vinegar cuts right through soap scum. So clean with soap, then rinse with vinegar. That goes for counters (provided they’re not made of stone), sinks, and windows.
If you have a heavy buildup of soap scum in your bathtub or bathroom sink, vinegar will take care of it. Just don’t expect to clean it without scrubbing.
If you have hard water, it leaves alkaline mineral deposits. Vinegar and some elbow grease will take care of them. Take care of rust with vinegar, too.
Vinegar also works well to clean the microwave. Mix equal parts vinegar and water and nuke it long enough for it to boil for a while. The steam will loosen whatever is caked on the inside of the microwave.
Leave the door closed and let the steaming mixture sit long enough to be safe to touch (but still hot. Then use it to wipe inner surfaces.
Cleaning out the dishwasher requires several steps, but it ends with a cup of vinegar on the upper rack. Run the dishwasher with nothing else in it.
Pour a couple of cups of vinegar into a toilet that needs cleaning. The vinegar will dissolve any stains below the water line and kill germs and viruses. Let it sit for several hours. Brush and flush. It’s slower than a commercial toilet cleaner, but you’re not putting a dangerous chemical in the water supply.
The combination of vinegar and soda works in drains, by the way. Pour soda in the drain, dissolved in hot water if necessary. Then add vinegar. The fizzing action in which the two destroy each other loosens clogs. After a while flush the drain with hot water.
Should I buy cleaning vinegar?
No.
Heinz sells a “cleaning” vinegar that’s 6% acetic acid. As I said earlier, ordinary distilled white vinegar is 5% acetic acid. Heinz says you can use their cleaning vinegar for food. Why would anyone use distilled white vinegar for food? Any other vinegar tastes better. A higher concentration of acetic acid would make the food taste even worse, but it doesn’t clean any more effectively than the ordinary 5% solution.
You may also notice something called an industrial strength vinegar in the cleaning aisle. It appears to be nothing but 5% acetic acid that hasn’t been purified to food grade standards. In other words, it isn’t any stronger than the vinegar you find with the salad dressings.
In either case, you’re likely paying more per ounce for the so-called cleaning vinegars. You have to find some place to put two different products and discard two different containers. And you get no additional value to justify the expense or inconvenience. Count cleaning vinegar among the vinegar cleaning myths.
Tell us your experience in the comments.
Sources:
6 things you should never clean with vinegar / Lauren Piro, Good Housekeeping. December 23, 2015
Myths and facts about vinegar / Bruce Vance. Town & Country Cleaning
Should you buy cleaning vinegar for homemade cleaners? / Beverly, Make Your Own Zone. November 3, 2014
Uses for vinegar: what vinegar can and cannot do around your home / Household Management 101
What is vinegar and what makes it a good cleaner? / Alexandra Ossola, Kitchn. October 24, 2016
Well , first I found the article very interesting and helpful , however , once I began reading where it states ” Sould I buy cleaning vinegar ? ”
No
Heinz sellas a vinegar thats’ 6% acetic acid instead on 5%. It says you can use it for food . Do you ever use it for food ?
I found myself more confused trying to understand what was being mentioned , simply speaking it caused me to stop reading any more being I was not understanding any of it .
perhaps a simple facsimilie of ” Steps ”
Step
#1. what it is go for
Step #2 what it isn’t good for , simply speaking SOMETHING SIMPLE TO UNDERSTAND
I read things like this to ” get away ” from complicated subjects and topics like Technical Analysis , Fundamental Analysis , Macro Economics , Micro Economis , engulphing patterns ( candlesticks ) support & resistance lines , channels , trends , Sectors , Industries etc. etc.
speaking of which , our economy is currently in my opinion at a ” Top “
Thanks, Joe. I appreciate that kind of comment. I have revised the section you refer to. I hope it’s clearer now.
So great learning about the Do’s and Don’ts of different cleaning products. I’ve made so many mistakes before and would hate to mess up my new granite counter-top or ruin the paint on my walls which I have done before.
Thanks, Kerri. Glad I could help.
Try an experiment. On grapes you purchase at the grocery store, divide into three large ziplock bags, add plain water into one bag. The next add some baking soda and water maybe 2 tablespoons. The next add baking soda and vinegar and 4 oz.water . Close and shake. Pour each into a glass jar.
And you can compare and see how dirty grapes (and everything else) really are. See for yourself.
I read that vinegar works on mold. Is this true?
Thank you for going into a little detail about the chemical structure of vinegar and soap and why they don’t work together. I used to put vinegar with my laundry detergent when washing my linen to get a fresh scent, but now I know that I”ll need to either prewash or rinse with vinegar and not combine with laundry detergent.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2018-01-12/does-vinegar-really-kill-household-germs/8806878
US researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that vinegar efficiently killed Mycobacterium tuberculosis — the bacteria that causes tuberculosis — after 30 mins of exposure to a six per cent acetic solution.
Professor Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician at the Australian National University’s medical school, says: “TB is a hard-to-kill bacteria, so the fact that it works against them means most other bacteria will likely be killed by vinegar as well.”
Good article. One point not included—frequently distilled vinegar is made from petroleum rather than fruit fermentation. It is derived from ethanol so not natural at all. It’s quite the sticky wicket as the labeling isn’t clear. Use apple cider vinegar when possible because it is hard to track down the original source without contacting the company directly. Heinz’s distilled vinegar is not from petroleum but the rest are a big question and evidently it isn’t wrong doing not to declare the source on the labeling.
I was not aware of that. Thanks L. Weber.
Interesting Karen. But it takes a very long time to kill all the bacteria. No one looking for a household disinfectant will wait that long. Thanks for the information.
Thanks for commenting CherylRuth. Glad I could be helpful.
That’s what I read. I haven’t tried it. The instructions I found say to spray undiluted distilled vinegar on mold and let it work for an hour without rinsing or scrubbing. When something takes an hour to work, it’s important to give it an hour to work!
Interesting. I seldom buy grapes, because I can’t eat them all before they go bad. Is the purpose of your experiment to show that one method gets grapes cleaner than another, or just that a lot of residue comes off grapes?
I was going to use water, vinegar, and non abrasive cleaner to clean my Solar Panels, but it sounds like after reading this article it would be a bad thing to do. We used vinegar, water, baking soda on Perigo foot. What a mess it made, water spots. Had to use Fabalosa to get floor looking good again. Please what can I use on my slot panels that will get them clean, but also not kill my grass , flowers, when rinse runs off water.
Hi, Jim
I don’t know if vinegar is bad for solar panels, but it’s probably unnecessary. I found these instructions: https://energyinformative.org/solar-panel-cleaning/
Yes, water is a “chemical.” But it’s not useful to make an example of people who commonly misuse this word when we know the average person really means “dangerous chemicals,” a term this article goes on to use when explaining why vinegar would be good to use for toilet cleaning:
“It’s slower than a commercial toilet cleaner, but you’re not putting a dangerous chemical in the water supply.”
The article is confirming that the reason some people are attracted to vinegar as a cleaning solution is in fact correct in some instances. But it does so paragraphs after being dismissive of that mentality. Please consider sticking with the fact that just because vinegar is good for some things doesn’t mean it’s a miracle elixir.
I like to encourage precision in language, even though I know it’s a losing cause. But if it were only a matter of the average person misusing “chemical,” I’d probably let it pass. Too many environmental activists become positively nasty, as if “chemical” meant inherently dangerous. And whatever the propose instead of “chemicals” may have its own environmental problems.
Another good use for vinegar: I live in the Pacific Northwest (Portland, OR area specifically) and the first winter I was here I realized all my towels had started to smell like mildew (never had that problem in Oklahoma and I’d had the same towels for over ten years!). The way to get that smell out and keep them from mildewing is this: run them through a normal wash with normal detergent (I always add OxiClean as well). Then, after they’ve gone through the entire wash and rinse and spin, instead of drying them yet, pour a cup of white vinegar into the washer and run a HOT water load with just the vinegar. Then dry as usual. No more mildew and they don’t smell like vinegar either! 🙂
Thanks, Melissa
Since borax is antifungal, you’ll probably get the same effect by adding it to your wash water. It will save you time and water. But thanks for pointing out that you can use vinegar without getting that vinegary odor.
Today I washed a dress and noticed a stain. I tried removing it with sunlight soap and then I soaked it for a couple of hours in napisan oxi action powder dissolved in water. When I came back the yellow cotton dress was the she orange. I rinsed but the whole thi b was I evenly stained. I went to bed feeling really cranky about it but then remembered that I had seen a similar reaction before when stain removing with that soap. Some stains would go that orange color. Anyway, I hopped up and went and got the dress out the washing machine and I poured white vinegar over the dress and like magic it changes back to bright yellow like nothing ever happened. Yay vinegar!
Isn’t it great when you think of something that works to fix your mistakes?
Fabulous article! Thanks so much, you definitely addressed the many aspects of this controversial subject very well!!! Very helpful to the masses, undoubtedly, a true service! Keep the great articles coming!!! Don’t stop! God bless you! And for your many answers to commenters, it’s rare for an author to respond to his/her readers! Kudos! -Ben Arnold 😀
@Lisa what kind of a stain was it?
Wow, thanks, Ben!
To say water is just as effective at cleaning veggies as vinegar is a blatant lie. Even if vinegar killed only 45%, half of clinical test results, of the remaining surface bacteria/viruses it still performs exponentially better than water alone. To say it’s unless because it does not work as well as a purpose built disinfectant is like saying an electric scooter can’t get you from point a to point b because it is not a car…
That’s pretty strong language!
I pray you get these comments.. but, I’m in a bind.
Replaced my whole house water system, fed my a well.
I flushed the system with a pressure washer& unknown to me, soap was in the washer.
So, soap is now in my pipes and won’t go away..
I’m wondering is vinegar will neutralize it and allow me to flush it out?
Thx if you have a sec to help ?
I’m sorry, but I have no idea. It sounds like you need to call a plumber–at least for advice.