TikTok Orange Peel Cleaner – Honest Review

Have the powers of the social media algorithm sent you a video of the people who made cleaners out of orange peels or citrus peels? Allured by the promise of a cleaning solution that’s zero-waste, good for the planet, and budget-friendly, I decided to test out this orange peel cleaner. Apparently, I was not alone. The search for “cleaner with orange peel” has 9.7M views on TikTok! The orange peel cleaner works mainly because of two key ingredients: vinegar and limonene. 

If you’re like me, and you’re always trying to be more sustainable and integrate the best eco-friendly, zero waste, package-free options into your life – you’ve come to the right place! Made to Sustain focuses on Food and Lifestyle Sustainability. So when I saw a video for orange peel cleaner several times on the internet. The essence of the video is to showcase how you can make a powerful multi-use cleaner at home with just two ingredients: orange peels and vinegar. I decided to test the orange cleaning solution and give it my honest review. 

Does the orange peel cleaner work?

You might be skeptical if this orange peel liquid sanitizer works because many citrus solvents are out on the market. However, these often contain petroleum distillates and a number of other materials which can have unpleasant odors.

This orange peel cleaner works mainly because of two key ingredients: vinegar and limonene. The best part about this nice orange peel citrus cleaner is that with just two simple ingredients, you can make a powerful formula that rivals standard harsh cleaners. 

Limonene:

Limonene is the primary ingredient in noble chemical brand supplies such as Pledge, 409, Method, and other cleaners. It’s an essential oil commonly found in the peels of citrus fruits. Limonene provides a fresh, citrusy scent and acts as a degreaser. It’s also bio-degradable, safe around food, and approved by the EPA. Limonene is a great ingredient for effective and safe household cleaning products. You can learn more about limonene here.

Vinegar

Vinegar, also known as acetic acid, is a multi-functional household ingredient. It serves many purposes, from making great salad dressings to pickling to unclogging drains. It’s an inexpensive kitchen pantry ingredient that’s been used for many years. Vinegar is strong enough to dissolve dirt, grease, and minerals, making it an effective cleaner. Vinegar is a critical ingredient in making this orange peel liquid sanitizer because it also acts as a natural solvent to extract the natural oils from the orange peels. 

How to Prepare the Orange Peel Cleaner

Based on the videos on TikTok, there are only a  few essential steps to prepare the orange cleaner. The simple instructions are listed below:

1. Collect orange peels or lemon peels
2. Place them in a container like a mason jar
3. Cover them with enough White Vinegar to cover the tops
4. Let it sit for two weeks to extract 
5. Pour the Citrus Vinegar mixture into a reusable glass or plastic spray bottle
6. Use as you would any multi-purpose cleaner

Here’s how I did it. 

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Orange peel cleaner review! #zerowaste #review #cleantok #sustainableliving

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Detailed Instructions for Making an Orange Peel Liquid Sanitizer

I started by purchasing my oranges in bulk when they were in season. While I’m sure you could use tangerines or clementines or even lemons, but I used Cara Cara oranges since those were available. If you don't have either, you can use lemon peels or grapefruit peels as all citrus contains limonene. 

I ate oranges throughout the week, and saved the peels in a repurposed an old glass jar. Since I didn’t peel them all at once, I stored the peels in the refrigerator until I had enough to make the extract. The purpose of the fridge is so that the orange peels aren’t fermented when you need them. Spoiler alert – I learned that the hard way! 

You only need about 3-4 orange peels to make the cleaner. So once you have collected enough in your jar, all you need to do is fill it with distilled white vinegar to the top of your container. I had about 5 or 6 peels, so my cleaner was a bit stronger.

The main compound that we’re trying to extract here is called Limonene. Limonene is found in a lot of citrus cleaners like Pledge and is great for disinfecting. We need to let the vinegar work its magic, which should take about two weeks in a cool dark place.  The longer you let it sit, the stronger it will be. 

Some accounts suggested diluting the liquid one to one, but it would make a less concentrated cleaner. I put it in my pantry and prepared it the same way. But I forgot about it, so this cleaner had a little longer time to distill. After a couple of weeks, I poured it into a spray bottle and filled the rest with water. 

The Results

It shouldn’t be surprising that how much vinegar you use produces more cleaner. When I poured the solution into my reusable spray bottle, it yielded about 250 mL of cleaning solution. 

The orange peel cleaner smelled as you would expect, a refreshing orange smell with faint notes of vinegar. In fact, the citrus aroma masked much of the vinegar smell. I tested it on my countertops and on my stainless steel dishwasher. 

The cleaner worked great! The design makes it hard to tell when my countertops are messy, especially by my coffee pot. So naturally, this is where I decided to test. The cleaner seemed to wipe everything up, even the coffee stains!

On my dishwasher, the orange peel cleaner was able to wipe up some fingerprint marks and some pet licks from our pets! I find most cleaners don’t perform great on stainless steel, but this one was effective. 

This was an easy way to create a handy cleaner that was effective on a wide variety of materials, and at a great price too! This orange peel vinegar cleaner only needed a couple of sprays to make a great degreaser with strong cleaning power.

Other Options vs Homemade Orange Peel Cleaner

If you love the idea of an orange cleaner but don’t want to do it yourself? You can purchase Limonene concentrate on the internet. We bought orange oil concentrate a few years ago to keep the cats from scratching the couch, but they ignored it. Left with a large bottle of cleaning concentrate, we used it as a household cleaner.

While we were able to get about 8 refills out of our concentrate, which is a decent return for a $25 bottle of concentrate. However, the smell of the concentrate was very potent. If you’re sensitive to smells, I would avoid purchasing a limonene concentrate.  

Final Thoughts

This orange peel cleaner was a great idea to create a natural cleaner. It's a cost-effective way to create a simple, non-toxic, environmentally friendly household cleaner. Since it contains both limonene and vinegar, the cleaner is effective at removing grease and dirt while being antibacterial. Orange peel cleaner has a low cost of entry for someone looking to go zero waste. I enjoyed getting to experiment with this mixture on my countertops and my dishwasher. Would you test this out?

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