Around the House with Baking Soda

Baking soda shouldn’t just be contained to the kitchen and bathroom! Baking soda has so many uses in the household that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start keeping a box in every room, bedrooms included.

Below are some of the common uses for baking soda around the house, many of which I promise you haven’t even thought about before.

Kitty Litter Freshener

Kitty litter is notorious for stinking. After all, it’s where your feline buddy relieves himself or herself, so it’s to be expected. Instead of searching for a place to hide the litter box or just dealing with a stinky corner, baking soda can help de-odorize the box and freshen it up.

Just sprinkle a healthy amount of baking soda into the litter box, and even around the box on the floor to absorb the odor of the kitty litter. It’s simple, easy, cheap, and makes life with your cat much more pleasurable.

Your feline friend might be confused at first, but they will adapt quickly.

Carpet, Mattress, and Furniture Freshener

Baking soda has wonderful de-odorizing properties.

If you just leave baking soda in the presence of something stinky, then it will absorb the odor in no time at all.

Carpets, mattresses, and furniture are all things that develop odor over time. It can be a huge process to thoroughly clean those, and you might have to even rent machines to do it. Not cheap or easy.

Here’s a tip – sprinkle baking soda over your carpets, mattresses, and furniture to freshen up their scent and remove any odors. Rub and massage the baking soda in.

Leave the baking soda in overnight (at least), then vacuum up the remainder.

What’s left is a fresh and clean smelling couch or carpet.

Just make sure that you vacuum up all the baking soda.

P.S. You can also sprinkle baking soda into purses that haven’t been used in a while to get rid of their musty odors.

Stuffed animal freshener

Let’s face it, you love ‘em, but your kids can be stinkmonsters.

But using the same process as above – sprinkling and vacuuming – you can freshen up your child’s stuffed animals and plush toys overnight. No more smell of spit, saliva, or regurgitated pasta.

You can do this more easily by putting stuffed animals or other objects into a plastic bag, putting baking soda into the bag, and sealing the bag overnight and shaking it a bit.

Dry Shampoo for Odorous Pets

It can be a struggle to get your pet into a shower or bath. Baking soda makes freshening up your pet’s scent incredibly easy.

Just treat the baking soda as dry shampoo. Sprinkle it all over your pet, and massage it through his fur and make sure you work it into his skin, which is where the oil comes from.

Leave it on your pet for as long as he can stand it, or 1 hour, and then brush your pet vigorously to get rid of the excess white baking soda powder.

Say goodbye to perpetual wet dog smell.

Ashtray DE-odorizer

If you smoke indoors, you probably use an ashtray. Ashtrays can build up incredibly strong smells after time, and this isn’t always pleasant to be near even if you are an avid smoker.

We know that baking soda is a wonderful de-odorizer, so to neutralize some of the smell of that ashtray, just sprinkle some baking soda into it before, during, and after you use it. It will suck up the smell of smoke in no time at all and control the odors in your home.

Clean Floors and Walls

To clean your floors and walls, simply make a baking soda paste, with equal parts baking soda and warm water. Use that to scrub your hardwood floors and walls without any fear of any toxic chemicals eroding them.

This is especially important when cleaning painted walls, because some cleaners may strip the paint from your walls! Baking soda is 100% harmless yet effective, so you don’t have to worry about the safety of any paint.

Fire Extinguisher

Obviously, this use must come with a disclaimer. If you’re worried about fires, you really should obtain a fire extinguisher for your kitchen or garage. In fact, it is a good rule of thumb to have 1 per household, and check regularly to make sure that they haven’t expired.

That said, baking soda can work in a pinch to put out small fires, especially those in the kitchen! If you’ve got a fire, simply dump baking soda over it, covering the whole fire. This will NOT increase the fire, as sugar or other powders will.

The reason this works is that baking soda produces carbon dioxide when exposed to heat, and carbon dioxide displaces the oxygen that the fire requires to burn.

But again, you should have a fire extinguisher on hand.

You should be aware that putting water on many types of fires (like oil fires) can actually make them worse, so baking soda can be used instead of water sometimes.

Homemade Pet Toothpaste

If you have a pet, you’ll know that they get some serious kibble breath sometimes. This just gets worse when you don’t brush their teeth on a regular basis – but some pets absolutely hate it, so it’s difficult to police.

A big part of that is the odor and flavor of many pet toothpastes. Baking soda can substitute in a pinch for a great toothpaste as it is abrasive yet gentle – and it is odorless! Your pet will barely know what’s going on because it is so gentle and it’s harmless – they can even swallow it if they want, without having to rinse! Just dip your pet’s toothbrush into some baking soda, wet it, and go to town.

You just have to get them to sit still for their brushing session, and that’s no small feat.