Amazing Orange

A couple of weeks ago I was reading an article about surprising things you can use around the house, one of which was orange peels.  I learned that the peels contain oil which can be turned into a natural cleaning product. After finishing the article,  I decided to try making my own cleanser with orange peels and vinegar.

We eat a lot of oranges at this time of year, so coming up with the peels was easy.  I crammed as many as I could into an empty peanut butter jar, added vinegar, and let it sit on the counter for a couple of weeks, shaking it a couple of times every day. The jar looked quite colorful setting next to the sink.

This morning I decided to test out my orange oil cleaner on the vinyl kitchen floor. I usually sponge mop it with vinegar and water, but today I grabbed the orange oil-laced brew. After I removed the peels, I was left with half a jar of beautiful orange-colored liquid with a faint citrus smell.  I have a big kitchen floor, though, and there wasn't enough to do the job, so I added plain vinegar from the jug in the pantry to fill the jar, then poured it into the bucket of water and got to work.

The floor was quite dirty, and when I was in the middle of the job I wasn't sure that the orange oil was doing anything, but when the floor dried it was clean and had a nice shine.  It also passed the "walk barefoot across the room" cleanliness test, so I'd say my experiment was a success.