This $8 Eco-Friendly Product Is My Secret Cleaning Weapon

When it comes to keeping my home clean, I look for three things in the products I use: affordability, eco-friendliness, and effectiveness. Generally, when it comes to being eco-conscious, I try my best to avoid single-use plastic and to pick products that are cruelty-free, plant-based, biodegradable, zero waste, or compostable. The caveat is that these products also have to be budget-friendly and great at what they claim to do.

Fortunately, I've found a cleaning product that checks off all three boxes. It's the Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day Multi-Surface Cleaner Concentrate, which retails for $7.99+ on Amazon. Now, hear me out — yes, the bottle is made of plastic, but it can be used to create 16 gallons of cleaning solution for a majority of the surfaces in your home.

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A cleaning concentrate is a highly concentrated cleaning formula that gets diluted with water when you want to use it. So it gives you more bang for your buck.

When I got this concentrate, I saved a plastic spray bottle to mix the solution in. With 1/4 cup of cleaning solution per one gallon of water, you combine the two elements and what you end up with is a cleaner you can use on all non-porous surfaces, like floors, counters, tiles, cupboards, and walls. Of course, if you don't have a gallon-size vessel to put the product in, you'll have to do a bit of math to use the correct amounts for your specific container.

Made with plant-derived cleaning ingredients, this product is made ​without​ parabens, phthalates, glycol solvents, chlorine, artificial colors, and animal-derived ingredients. It's also biodegradable and cruelty-free, and the bottle is recyclable.

Now, if you live with a human or animal who is sensitive to essential oils, this is not the product for you. It comes in garden-inspired scents such as lemon verbena, bluebell, geranium, honeysuckle, lavender, and rosemary. However, I don't find the scents to be too overpowering and they dissipate quickly.

What I love most about this product is that it's an affordable gateway to trying out cleaning concentrates. Being about to stretch a product out over several months — especially when it's only $8! — truly can't be beat. I'm also glad I was able to slightly offset this plastic use by reusing another plastic spray bottle in its place.

In the future, I will definitely be repurchasing this product. Yet, I truly hope that Mrs. Meyers will one day come out with a refillable version so I don't have to buy new bottles when I run out. If that doesn't happen, I might try creating a DIY version at home.