Progress on goals: Homemade reusable cleaning wipes

Hi everyone.  You've grown so used to me reporting on my Trader Joe's goal that you probably forgot I had other goals for 2017.  Yup, I did/do.  My first 2017 goal was to make reusable cleaning wipes.  Well, I'm pleased to report that I succeeded, and I'm ready to share my recipe? method? how I did it.

They're not pretty, but they work!

My first order of business was to figure out what I wanted to use for the wipe itself.  I considered using cut up t-shirts or towels, and you may remember that I actually "bought" (they were free, but "bought" is still the best verb I can conjure right at this moment) some washcloths to use.

I did use the washcloths for the first couple of attempts, but they were too big and fluffy (I could barely fit the six of them in my container), and actually didn't work very well for what I wanted to do with them. 

So then I grabbed some microfiber washcloths from The Dollar Tree, and I've been very happy with both the number I can fit in my container and the way they clean.

The next order of business was to find a cleaning solution that I liked.  I tried 4 or 5 different recipes, but settled on this simple but effective combination:

Combine 1 cup water, 1/2 c. rubbing alcohol, and 1/2-1 T dawn dish washing liquid.

That's it.  Mix it up and throw your cloths in there.  You can scale up or down based on how many cloths you have (I have 8).

Now I will say that this mixture can get quite sudsy during use, so if I'm cleaning something shiny, I add the extra step of buffing/drying it off, but for the most part, I just let the things I clean dry on their own.  I will also warn you that rubbing alcohol can have a drying effect on skin. so you might want to wear gloves (which you might be doing anyway) when you use these, or just make sure to moisturize.

I mostly clean bathrooms with these wipes, but they work really well for general cleaning, too (pro tip: to avoid cross-contamination, use one color of cloths for the bathroom, another color for the kitchen, and a third for general cleaning (here's a set of 24 microfiber cloths: eight in each of three colors)).

How are you doing on your 2017 goals?