Two ingredient bathroom cleaning spray.

Vinegar strikes again! This amazing liquid has many uses, from a useful health remedy to cleaning and disinfecting. A quick and cheap DIY tip focuses on the latter with an amazing two-ingredient cleaner to make a dirty bathroom shine like new. You may think it’s just as easy to use bleach or a chemical cleaner, but while those products are effective, they’re not as safe or cheap.

As you can imagine, we’ve published a ton of articles about vinegar, from arthritis solutions to shining your shoes to killing weeds. This time, we’re giving you a way to clean the dirt in your bathroom, and if it sounds easy, that’s because it is!

All you need is a spray bottle, dish soap, hot vinegar, gloves and a brush. As you’ve probably guessed, the dish soap and hot vinegar are mixed in a special ratio (okay, that’s one part hot vinegar and one part dish soap) in the spray bottle. And the best part is that your bathroom won’t smell like cleaning chemicals.

The most commonly used bathroom chemical is usually bleach, but the Centers for Disease Control recommends several precautions. First, the CDC says that anyone cleaning with bleach should wear rubber gloves, boots and protective eyewear. Bleach should also be diluted with water and windows should be opened to let the fumes escape. There are no such warnings for vinegar.

So, how does vinegar do it? Well, according to the Vinegar Institute – yes, there is such a thing – vinegar is made from a natural two-part process that turns sugar into acetic acid. They explain:

“The first process is called alcoholic fermentation and occurs when yeasts change natural sugars to alcohol under controlled conditions. In the second process, a group of bacteria (called “Acetobacter”) converts the alcohol portion to acid. This is the acetic, or acid fermentation that forms vinegar. Proper bacteria cultures are important; timing is important; and fermentation should be carefully controlled.”

However it’s made, vinegar works in so many situations, and you’ll be amazed at the results from this demonstration that you’ll be mixing it up every time your bathroom needs a cleaning.