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There is a bottle in my pantry that costs a dollar or two and does the work of a whole cabinet full of expensive store bottles. Plain white vinegar. The old people kept it close at hand and put it to a dozen uses, and somewhere along the way most of us forgot how much one humble bottle can really do.
Somewhere we got taught to buy a different special product for every little task, a bottle for the glass, a bottle for the drains, a bottle for the counters, a bottle for the pots, each one sold as the one thing that would do that one job. And so our cabinets filled up with costly bottles and harsh fumes, when a single cheap jug of vinegar would have done near all of it.
In this video:
✓ Clearing a slow, sluggish drain without harsh chemicals
✓ Loosening stubborn sticker gum and price-tag residue
✓ Chasing a foul smell out of the air and off surfaces
✓ Cleaning near every surface in the house with one bottle
✓ A simple vinegar trap that catches fruit flies
✓ Smoothing wrinkled clothes without a fight
✓ Keeping the cat off the couch and away from where it shouldn't be
✓ Keeping your cut flow
https://eliasyoder.com
There is a bottle in my pantry that costs a dollar or two and does the work of a whole cabinet full of expensive store bottles. Plain white vinegar. The old people kept it close at hand and put it to a dozen uses, and somewhere along the way most of us forgot how much one humble bottle can really do.
Somewhere we got taught to buy a different special product for every little task, a bottle for the glass, a bottle for the drains, a bottle for the counters, a bottle for the pots, each one sold as the one thing that would do that one job. And so our cabinets filled up with costly bottles and harsh fumes, when a single cheap jug of vinegar would have done near all of it.
In this video:
✓ Clearing a slow, sluggish drain without harsh chemicals
✓ Loosening stubborn sticker gum and price-tag residue
✓ Chasing a foul smell out of the air and off surfaces
✓ Cleaning near every surface in the house with one bottle
✓ A simple vinegar trap that catches fruit flies
✓ Smoothing wrinkled clothes without a fight
✓ Keeping the cat off the couch and away from where it shouldn't be
✓ Keeping your cut flow
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Go and look under your kitchen sink, or in the cabinet where you keep your cleaning things, and count the
00:05bottles.
00:06One for the glass, one for the counters, one for the drains, one for the bathroom, one for this and
00:13one for that.
00:14A whole crowd of bottles, each one bought dear, each one full of harsh stuff you would not want on
00:21your skin or in your lungs.
00:23And half of them doing near the same job as the other half.
00:27Now what if I told you that one cheap thing, a single bottle of plain vinegar that costs you a
00:34dollar or two,
00:35could do the work of near that whole shelf of bottles and do it just as well, and with none
00:41of the harsh fumes.
00:42The old people knew this. A jug of vinegar was one of the most useful things in the house, put
00:49to a dozen jobs a week.
00:51Today I am going to give you ten of the best old uses for a bottle of vinegar,
00:56and by the end you may find you can throw out half those costly bottles for good.
01:02I am Elias, and on this Lancaster County place we keep things the old plain way,
01:08which means we do not fill a cabinet with a different costly bottle for every little task.
01:13A jug of vinegar, a box of baking soda, a cake of plain soap, a few lemons, and clean rags,
01:22that is near the whole of our cleaning cupboard, and it keeps a house clean and fresh and wholesome
01:27as well as any shelf of store bottles ever did, for a tiny part of the cost.
01:33Vinegar is the workhorse of them all, so let me show you what one humble bottle can do.
01:39Quick word before I go further. The old methods my family uses, there is more of it than fits in
01:46any one video. I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com. The book is the long
01:54version. If you want it, it is there. I will not mention it again. My mother kept two jugs of
02:01vinegar
02:01in the pantry at all times, the white for the cleaning and the cider for the kitchen and the
02:06odd remedy, and I do not think a day went by that she did not reach for one or the
02:11other.
02:12She cleaned the windows with it, freshened the milk cans with it, loosened a stuck jar lid,
02:18took the smell out of a jar, wiped down the whole kitchen with it of an evening. When I was
02:25a boy,
02:25I thought every problem in that house was answered with either vinegar, baking soda,
02:30or a bar of soap, and looking back, near enough every one was. She had no cabinet of bottles,
02:38no sprays with long names, just those few plain things and the knowing of what each was good for,
02:45handed down from her own mother. And her house was as clean and sweet-smelling as any I have ever
02:52been in. That is the knowing I want to pass to you, for it will save you a great deal
02:57of money
02:57and keep the harsh stuff out of your home besides. The first use, and one of the best known,
03:04is for a slow or clogged drain, for when the water will not go down and you have no wish
03:10to pour those
03:11harsh drain chemicals down your pipes. You take some baking soda, about half a cup, and pour it down
03:18the drain, and then you pour after it a cup of plain vinegar. And you will hear it go to
03:24work at once,
03:25foaming and fizzing up in the drain as the two react together. And that foaming action helps to
03:32break up and loosen the grease and gunk that is clogging the pipe. You let it fizz and work a
03:38few
03:38minutes, and then you flush it through with a kettle of hot water, and often as not, the drain runs
03:45free
03:45again. Now I will be honest with you, this works well on the grease and the soap scum and the
03:51light
03:51clogs that build up slow in a pipe. But it is no miracle, and a drain truly blocked solid, stopped
03:59up with a real obstruction, may want a plumber's snake or a plumber himself. But for the common slow
04:05drain, the vinegar and soda is a fine first thing to try, cheap and gentle on your pipes, before ever
04:12you reach for anything harsher. And here is the better wisdom. Do it before the drain clogs, not after.
04:20A body who runs the soda and vinegar down the kitchen drain once a month, and follows it with
04:26the hot water, keeps the grease from ever building up thick enough to stop the pipe in the first place,
04:32and never has the clog to fight. It is the same in this as in everything. A little prevention regular
04:40is worth a great deal of cure. And one plain safety word while I am on the drains. Never you
04:48mix vinegar
04:49with bleach, not in a drain nor anywhere else, for the two together make a poison gas that is truly
04:56dangerous. Vinegar is a safe and gentle thing on its own, but keep it well away from bleach. The second
05:05use
05:05is for that sticky mess left behind by a price sticker or a bit of tape, that gummy residue that
05:12will not scrub
05:13off and only rolls up under your finger. Vinegar cuts it beautifully. You wet the sticky spot well with
05:21plain vinegar, or lay a vinegar soaked rag over it, and let it sit a few minutes to soak in
05:28and soften the gum.
05:29Then it scrubs and wipes right off, easy as anything, where before it would not budge. So the next time
05:38a new jar or a new tool comes with a stubborn sticky label,
05:42reach for the vinegar, rather than scratching at it with your nail. If the gum is thick and stubborn, warm
05:50the vinegar a little first,
05:52for warm vinegar softens the sticky faster than cold, and mixed with a pinch of baking soda or a little
05:59oil, it lifts even the most stubborn old label glue.
06:04It works on the gum left by tape and labels on jars, glass, metal, and most hard surfaces,
06:13and it saves many a good jar that you would want to wash and keep for your canning and storing,
06:19freeing it of its old label, clean and whole.
06:24The third use is for a foul smell, in a trash can or a pail, or any container that has
06:31gone sour and holds the stink even after you have emptied and washed it.
06:36Here is an old trick that works a wonder. You take a slice of plain bread and you soak it
06:44good with vinegar,
06:44and you lay that vinegar-soaked bread in the bottom of the smelly can and leave it overnight.
06:51By the morning the bread has drawn the bad smell right out of the container, soaked it up,
06:58and when you take the bread away, the can is fresh again.
07:02It seems too simple to work, but it does, and it works in any small smelly place you can set
07:09it,
07:10a cupboard, a box, wherever a stale smell has settled in.
07:15And a small open dish of plain vinegar set in a room will do much the same over a day
07:22or two,
07:22quietly drinking up a stale or musty smell from the air,
07:27for the vinegar takes up and neutralizes the odor rather than just covering it over the way a store air
07:35freshener does.
07:36A body who cooks something strong-smelling or has a room gone musty can set out a bowl of vinegar
07:44and by morning the air is fresher, and then the faint vinegar smell itself errs away and is gone.
07:53The fourth use is the big one, the all-purpose cleaner,
07:57and this one alone can replace a whole row of those spray bottles.
08:02You take an empty spray bottle and you fill it about one third of the way with plain vinegar
08:08and the rest of the way with water, and you add just a few drops of dish soap and give
08:15it a gentle shake.
08:16And there is your all-purpose cleaner, safe and cheap and effective,
08:22for your counters, your bathrooms, your kitchen, most any hard surface in the house.
08:29It cuts grease, it cleans grime, it leaves things fresh,
08:34and it costs you pennies against the dear bottles at the store,
08:39with none of the harsh chemical fumes filling your house.
08:43This one spray bottle does the work of half the cleaning aisle.
08:47The reason it cleans so well is that the mild acid of the vinegar cuts through grease
08:54and dissolves the hard water film and the soap scum that build up on surfaces,
09:00while the drop of dish soap helps it lift and carry the dirt away,
09:05and the water thins it to just the right strength.
09:09It is a gentle cleaner, safe around your food surfaces and your children in a way those harsh sprays are
09:17not,
09:17and when it dries, the vinegar smell errs away
09:21and leaves no chemical residue behind on the counter where you set your bread.
09:27Mix a fresh bottle when it runs low, it costs almost nothing,
09:30and label it plainly so no one mistakes it.
09:34Now a small honest word.
09:37Keep the vinegar off natural stone, off marble and granite and the like,
09:42for the acid can etch and dull those stones.
09:45But for your ordinary counters and tile and porcelain and glass,
09:50it is a fine and gentle cleaner.
09:53The fifth use is a trap for fruit flies,
09:56those tiny flies that come with the summer fruit
09:59and hang in a cloud about your kitchen.
10:02Vinegar catches them easy.
10:04You pour a little apple cider vinegar into a small bowl or jar
10:08for the sweet sour smell of the cider vinegar draws them in.
10:12Then you cover the top tight with a bit of plastic wrap
10:15and poke a few small holes in the wrap.
10:19The flies smell the vinegar and go down through the holes to get at it,
10:23but once in they cannot find their way back out and there they stay.
10:28Set a couple of these traps where the flies gather
10:31and you will clear them out in a day or two, with no poison and no spray,
10:37just a bowl of vinegar and a bit of wrap.
10:40A drop of dish soap stirred into the vinegar makes it work even better,
10:44for it breaks the surface so the flies that land cannot rest on top but sink right in.
10:51And mind, while you trap them, clear away what drew them in the first place,
10:56the overripe fruit on the counter, the bit of spill, the damp and the drain.
11:01For the trap catches the flies you have, while the tidying keeps new ones from coming.
11:08The sixth use is for wrinkles in your clothes, when a shirt or a dress has come out of the
11:13wash,
11:14or the trunk creased and rumpled, and you have no wish to heat up an iron.
11:18You mix one part vinegar to about three parts water in a spray bottle,
11:23and you mist the wrinkled clothing lightly with it, and then hang it up to dry.
11:28As it dries, most of the wrinkles relax and fall out on their own,
11:33and the vinegar smell errs away as it dries, leaving no odor behind.
11:38It will not do for a hard, sharp crease, but for the ordinary rumples,
11:43it freshens and smooths a garment nicely with no iron at all.
11:48It is a fine thing for a shirt taken from a packed trunk or a suitcase,
11:53or a garment hung too long crowded in the press that has come out creased but not soiled,
11:59freshening and smoothing it in a few minutes hanging without the trouble of heating an iron or a wash.
12:05The seventh use is to keep a cat from clawing at the furniture,
12:09and here I will be honest with you about how well it works,
12:12for I do not want to promise you more than it gives.
12:16Many cats dislike the smell of vinegar and will keep away from a spot that smells of it,
12:21so a little vinegar in a spray bottle spritzed on the corner of a couch or a chair leg the
12:27cat has been clawing
12:28may keep the creature off it.
12:30But cats differ, and some mind it more than others, so it is worth a try, but no sure thing.
12:37You can also dampen a cloth with the vinegar and wipe it along the spot rather than spraying,
12:43which keeps it from misting where you do not want it.
12:46Give the spot a fresh going over every day or two while you are training the cat off it,
12:52for the smell fades as it dries and wants renewing to keep working.
12:57And before you spray it on any furniture, test a little first on a hidden spot
13:02to be sure the vinegar does not mark or harm the fabric or the finish,
13:06for you do not want to spoil the furniture trying to save it from the cat.
13:11The eighth use is to help cut flowers last longer in the vase,
13:16for a fresh bouquet is a lovely thing and it grieves you to see it wilt and die in a
13:21few short days.
13:23You add a little vinegar to the water in the vase along with a small spoon of sugar
13:27and mix it in before you set the flowers.
13:30The little bit of acid helps keep the water from souring and going foul with bacteria,
13:36and the sugar feeds the blooms, and between them the flowers stay fresh and bright
13:42a good deal longer than they would in plain water.
13:45It is no magic, they will fade in time as all cut flowers must,
13:50but you will get more good days out of them.
13:52Change the water every couple of days and add a fresh little measure of the vinegar and sugar each time,
13:59and trim the stem ends afresh, and you will stretch a bouquet's life by many days
14:04over what plain water gives, and enjoy the flowers the longer for it.
14:09The ninth use is for cleaning glass to a clear shine,
14:13your windows, your mirrors, your drinking glasses and jars.
14:18A little plain vinegar on a soft cloth, or that vinegar and water spray,
14:23wipes glass clean and clear and streak free, cutting the film and the smudges
14:28and leaving it bright, far better than it sounds and for almost nothing.
14:33It is wonderful on windows and mirrors especially, for it cuts the greasy film that makes glass smear
14:40and leaves it clear without the streaks a store cleaner often leaves.
14:45Wipe it with a clean, lint-free cloth, or, as the old folks did, with crumpled newspaper,
14:52which dries glass to a fine shine and leaves no lint behind.
14:56Now one honest caution here, if you wear eyeglasses, be careful using vinegar on the lenses,
15:04for many modern glasses have a special coating on them that the acid can damage,
15:09so for your spectacles it is safer to use just the plain cloth and water made for them.
15:15But for the windows and mirrors and glassware about the house, vinegar is one of the finest and cheapest glass
15:21cleaners there is.
15:23The tenth use is for the stubborn, burnt-on stains in your pots and pans,
15:29the scorched and crusted spots that will not scrub off no matter how you work at them.
15:34Rather than scrubbing your arm off, you let the vinegar do the work.
15:38You set the pot on the stove, pour in a cup or two of vinegar and about the same of
15:44water,
15:45and bring it to a boil and let it boil gently a few minutes.
15:49The hot vinegar loosens and lifts the burnt-on crust and the hard stains,
15:55so that after it cools they wipe and scrape away with ease where before they would not move.
16:01It brings a scorched pot back to bright with hardly any scrubbing at all.
16:06The vinegar loosens what the scrubbing alone could never budge,
16:10and saves you the hard labor and the scratched pot both.
16:14And for a truly stubborn, burnt pot, you can sprinkle in a spoon of baking soda
16:19after the vinegar has boiled and loosened things, and let it fizz and work,
16:24and that combination lifts near anything.
16:27The same boiling vinegar trick cleans the hard water lime and scale out of a kettle or a coffee pot
16:34too,
16:35that chalky white crust that builds up inside from hard water,
16:39for the acid of the vinegar dissolves the lime right off.
16:43Boil vinegar and water in a limed-up kettle, let it sit, pour it out and rinse,
16:49and the inside comes clean and bright as new.
16:53Now let me say a plain word, not a who-prophets sermon,
16:57for there is no villain here, only a habit worth noticing.
17:01Somewhere along the way we were taught to buy a different special product for every little task,
17:07a bottle for the glass, and a bottle for the drains,
17:10and a bottle for the counters, and a bottle for the pots,
17:13each one sold to us as the one thing that would do that one job.
17:18And so our cabinets filled up with costly bottles,
17:21and we spent a small fortune a year on them,
17:24and filled our homes with harsh fumes besides.
17:28The old people would have thought it a kind of madness,
17:31for they knew that a few plain cheap things, vinegar first among them,
17:35would do near all of it.
17:37There is real money in selling a body ten bottles where one would serve,
17:42and no money at all in teaching him that the dollar jug of vinegar does the work of the lot.
17:48So the plain old knowing got crowded off the shelf by all those bright bottles,
17:53not by any scheme, just by the plain drift of things,
17:57and folks forgot how much one humble bottle can do.
18:01So there are ten good uses for a bottle of vinegar, and there are many more besides.
18:06It clears a slow drain, cuts sticker gum, kills a foul smell,
18:12cleans near every surface in the house, traps your fruit flies,
18:16smooths your wrinkled clothes, keeps the cat off the couch,
18:20keeps your cut flowers fresh, shines your glass and mirrors,
18:24and lifts the burnt crust from your pots.
18:27All from one cheap bottle that costs a dollar or two, with no harsh chemicals and no fumes.
18:34Keep a good jug of plain white vinegar in your house, and a bottle of the apple cider kind too,
18:40and you will find you reach for them again and again, and buy far fewer of those costly single job
18:47bottles.
18:48A plain word on which vinegar to keep.
18:52For near all the cleaning, the plain white distilled vinegar is what you want,
18:57and it is the cheapest of all, bought by the big jug for very little, so keep a good jug
19:03of it always.
19:04The apple cider vinegar, which costs a bit more, is the one for the kitchen and the odd remedy,
19:10and the fruit fly trap, and the flowers, where its gentler nature suits.
19:16Keep both, and you are well set for anything.
19:20Now I want to hear from you.
19:22Tell me down below what you use vinegar for around your own house,
19:26for I know there are a hundred good uses I have not named, and you all know tricks I have
19:32never heard.
19:33And tell me what part of the country you write from while you are at it,
19:37and whether your water is the hard kind that crusts everything,
19:41for the vinegar is a special help against that hard water lime.
19:45I read what you write, and I learn new tricks from you every day.
19:50Next time, I want to show you the same for baking soda,
19:54that other humble cheap thing that sits in near every kitchen,
19:57for it, too, has a dozen uses about the house most folks never think of,
20:02and between the vinegar and the soda,
20:04you have near all the cleaning and freshening you will ever need for a few pennies.
20:10The old people kept a clean and wholesome home,
20:13with a few plain, cheap things, and the knowing of how to use them.
20:18A jug of vinegar doing the work that we now buy a whole shelf of bottles to do.
20:23There is a quiet, good sense in it,
20:26in cleaning your house with simple things you understand and can afford,
20:30that harm no one and cost next to nothing.
20:34The people who built this country with their hands knew that,
20:38and we are only just starting to remember it.
20:40You're absolutely not sure it's alright.
20:40You
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