Is your bathroom cluttered with dozens of plastic bottles, jars, tubes, and dispensers?

The bathroom should be a place that reflects calm, cleanliness and refreshment, but all too often the energy of the space is taken over with product chaos. Do you dread opening the cabinet when looking for something and rattling through the mess of half empty shampoos, expired medicines, mangled toothpaste and beauty products that didn’t work out?

Here’s a way to fix that.

Remember when we talked about how to reduce your kitchen clutter using these common household ingredients?

• Vinegar
• Baking Soda
• Lemons
• Essential Oils
• Citric Acid

Guess what! They work just as well in the bathroom. See how many products can be replaced with these few, inexpensive items and you’ll have your salle de bain feeling like a spa in no time. All of these products can be purchased in bulk and stored in clear glass containers for clean, plastic, and stress-free storage.

How to use these easy homemade natural product replacements:

• Use baking soda instead of toothpaste for excellent oral hygiene. Add a drop or two of peppermint essential oil for a flavor.
• A small amount of baking soda on your fingertips makes a fresh feeling, gently exfoliating daily face wash
• Vinegar and water in a glass spray bottle work well for surface cleaning
• Lemon or lime essential oil makes a pleasant smelling disinfectant for the faucet and toilet handles
• Baking soda is a great toilet cleaner
• Baking soda and a few drops of the essential oils of your choice added to the bath water make a wonderful, relaxing soak. Make it deluxe with a handful of Epsom salts added as well.
• Citric acid makes a great shower and tile cleaner. Mix it in a spray bottle with hot water and let it work its magic on the grout. Makes a great toilet bowl cleaner as well.
• A cut lemon works wonders on rust stains around the fixtures and mildew spots on the shower curtain or the grout

How about all of those miracle creams, those solutions and ablutions and all of that make-up mess making you crazy? Check out Bea Johnson’s Zero Waste Home for all kinds of DIY beauty and hygiene product replacements.

So after you’ve rid yourself of all of your bathroom clutter and have your five ingredients lined up and ready to go, you can congratulate yourself for saving a lot of money (because you’ll never go back to the drug store habit) and making your bathroom a much more pleasant place to be. Now go take a soak and enjoy!