DIY Super Granite Cleaner!

Good Morning! Or afternoon, evening, whenever you happen to read this. It is morning here and finally Michigan has some warm days so I am in a fabulous mood. Even though I have been getting contractions and pains as long as its warm I will be happy! Little man is coming on Friday (we are hoping no sooner) so I thought I would make this post now before I become even more of a sleepless zombie.

We just bought a house (three kids in a two bedroom apartment, no thanks) and we have granite counter top. I know, fancy right? It was just remodeled so everything is all pretty, we really lucked out with this house! Now, back to the counter top. I have never ever been fancy enough to own granite. Well, I have lived in apartments for the last 10 years or so and they usually don't do the kitchen in granite. I have no clue how to even clean granite counter top and let me tell you, just water does not work at all!

What am I to do? Well eat some ice cream first, because I'm 9 months pregnant and do what I want. Then I go and look up what I can clean granite with. Yes, there are some things you should never clean granite with! I didn't know that so I am glad that I looked it up! Now I love cleaning with vinegar mixed with oranges, I guess with granite that is a no-no because it can damage the granite's sealant. Also bleaches and other all-purpose cleaners will do the same thing. I always wondered why granite had its own special cleaner. So what is there left to use? Water? Well I have tried that and it left a bunch of streaks on my granite, which bothers me. I might be called Messy Jessie (real nickname by the way) but I am trying to stay to a cleaner path and do get a little OCD about things from time to time.

So any thing acidic is a huge no-no. All purpose cleaners are a no-no. Water is okay but it leaves streaks so I looked around at different DIY granite cleaners. The recipes for them are pretty much all the same. You put isopropyl alcohol (or rubbing alcohol), water, and a little bit of dish soap into a bottle and bam you have granite cleaner. Some also like to use some drops of essential oils. One day when I finally talk my husband into buying some I might try it, I wont use orange or lemon for just in case but there are other great scented ones out there! So I decided to try it out but only in a smaller amount. Everyone (and I do mean every or almost every other blog out there) says to put ¼ cup alcohol, a couple drops (or some blogs went as high as ¼ of a teaspoon) of dish soap, and some water in a bottle. Then you mix it, spray it on and wipe it off! Now I used my 300 ML bottle because I wanted just to try it out. Here is the recipe I used just in case you wanted to just try it out too.

1 300 ML bottle (got mine from the dollar store a while ago)

5 tablespoons of rubbing alcohol.

2 drops of dawn dish soap

and water!

I first put in the 5 tablespoons of rubbing alcohol. I ended up spilling some trying to put it in so I put in a little bit more at the end. So, we can say I used roughly about 5 tablespoons of rubbing alcohol. I think next time I will use a couple more just to see what that does. I might actually make the full recipe all the other blogs post about instead because it seems to work well. Then I add the water almost to the top of the bottle and put in the two drops of dish soap. Mix it up a bit and that’s it! It does have an alcohol scent, the essential oils might work in getting rid of that. I don't mind that scent and it goes away pretty quickly. Now I will show you a picture of what my counter tops looked like after just cleaning with good ol' water!

See the streaks! Its enough to drive you crazy! What I did first was clean my counter tops with water and a sponge. Then when that dried a little, I just sprayed on a little of the cleaner and wiped it off with a coffee filter. I love coffee filters for cleaning but I am sure that paper towel would work too. I always clean with the water first to get the gross stuff off then I follow up with the granite cleaner to leave it nice and shiny! I suggest cleaning up spills and everything (especially acidic things) immediately. I am horrible with that, so that's something I have to work on. So, here is what it looked like after I used the granite cleaner:

Pretty huh? I seriously took like 20 pictures of my counter top but I think these pictures show the before or after a lot better than the others do. I really do love my granite, it seems to hide a lot of things and I love the different dimensions. Overall I think the cleaner does a great job. I will definitely have to have it in my cleaning arsenal. Go out and try it! Then tell me how you like it! :-)