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Why You Should Never Combine Vinegar with Bleach

And Other Cleaning Ingredients to Never Mix

May 31, 2021

Before you clean your bathroom with a few different cleaners, or before you grab that vinegar to create a DIY cleaning recipe, be sure to double check your cleaning product ingredients!

It might seem like combining cleaners would increase cleaning power, it’s never a good idea, and it can create dangerous fumes.

Even if you’re using a DIY cleaning recipe, you’ll still want to be cautious about what you’re cleaning with, or around.

So before you clean, keep these cleaning ingredients away from each other (and especially never pour one cleaner into the container of another):

  1. Bleach & Vinegar (forms chlorine gas)
  2. Bleach & Ammonia (forms chloramine gas)
  3. Bleach & Rubbing Alcohol (forms chloroform)
  4. Hydrogen Peroxide & Vinegar (forms peracetic acid)

Combining these creates dangerous fumes that can be harmful, irritating to the eyes, throat, & respiratory system, or even fatal at larger exposure times in smaller, enclosed spaces.

This means, for example, do not let vinegar-based DIY toilet bowl cleaners sit in the toilet bowl while using a bleach-based cleaner on the toilet seat.

If you do accidentally directly mix any of these together, call poison control and get to a well-ventilated area. Any time you’re cleaning with any of these combinations in an enclosed, not well-ventilated area, wipe down the area where the cleaning product was used and let it dry before using the next product. 

Better yet – use non-toxic products to clean, such as Castile soap, or an all-purpose cleaner like Liquid Sunshine from Vermont Soap, or *Force of Nature‘s sanitizing and disinfecting multi-surface cleaner.

 

*This is an affiliate link, meaning that if you purchase a product, I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Rest assured that I only affiliate with products that I have carefully vetted the ingredients of, and that I personally use and love.