You probably won't drink it as a beverage, but you might mix it with a little olive oil to put on your salad. Vinegar is a mild acid that cuts grease and disinfects by killing many types of bacteria, yeast, and molds. Soap Most people confuse soap and detergent. Actually, soap is a kind of detergent that is simple and made from natural products like vegetable oils and animal fats. The detergent that we buy from a store is really a synthetic detergent that has been manufactured from a variety of mineral products like coal tar and petroleum.
Soap is gentle and is wonderful in cleaning under the right conditions.
Fortunately, the water in most of the Puget Sound region is soft, so soap works just fine. You will note that none of the green cleaning recipes call for mixing soap and vinegar. There's no getting around this one. Using non-toxic alternatives to standard household cleaners sometimes means that you will have to scrub harder or longer. But we think that the health benefits far outweigh the need to spend a few more minutes on a cleaning chore.