Between the rise of Pinterest, the hipness of green cleaning, and the increased appreciation for being thrifty, this really is vinegar’s time to shine. It has SO many purposes and my goodness, what a bargain it is!

In my home, we use vinegar as part or our cleaning arsenal primarily because it is a way to have chemical-free cleaning, but we are also drawn to it because of its cost-effectiveness. Vinegar is part of a cleaning solution for our mop.

 

We also use it as part of a conditioning rinse for our hair in lieu of store-bought products. And yes, it really does work well!

(Looks like our bottle could use some deep cleaning with vinegar!)

And we use it in our dishwasher as a rinse aid.

Until recently, I thought that all vinegar was the same, and so why not buy the absolute cheapest vinegar I could find? After all, isn’t being thrifty part of the point, here?! Heinz has recently come out with Cleaning Vinegar, which is specially formulated for the types of jobs I mentioned above, along with lots and lots of other cleaning possibilities. You can learn all about my shopping adventure and my close look at all the different vinegar products I found at Walmart here.

When inspecting the vinegar labels, I did notice that the #HeinzVinegar offers a higher concentration of vinegar (6% instead of 5%, which is a 20% increase). That means that this really is specially formulated for better cleaning results, and that this isn’t just clever packaging. Heinz Cleaning Vinegar really is different from everything else available on the shelves.

While I was reading the label, I saw the recommendation listed to use vinegar to clean coffeemakers. Evidently vinegar can remove mineral build up that occurs over time.

I was very intrigued by this, as I use my coffee maker about 5 days a week to make my beloved iced coffees. I was very curious to see if I could taste any difference after cleaning my coffeemaker, so I did an experiment. I made coffee as usual and set aside a glass for myself. Then I followed the instructions for cleaning the coffeemaker, which included using full strength vinegar and doing a brew cycle with it, followed by two brew cycles with plain water to rinse.

The water after the vinegar “brew.” It was definitely a little discolored!

Then I made a pot of coffee and I used the exact same coffee, same filter, same sweetener, and the same milk. I even used the same glass and the same straw! 🙂 The coffee on the left is the “pre-vinegar” coffee and the coffee on the right is the “post-vinegar” coffee.

I was expecting, at best, to taste a very slight difference. But that’s not the result I got. The result was…well…sort of MIND BLOWING! The best way I know to describe the taste difference would be that the coffee on the left tasted like my tastebuds were wearing sunglasses, and the coffee on the right tasted like my tastebuds were basking in sunshine. The difference was so extreme that I threw out my old coffee (and you guys, I’m not one to waste precious coffee. EVER.).

I actually did a little dance in my kitchen as I sipped on my new coffee. It tasted SOOO yum! And then I got my planner out and made a note to clean my coffeemaker once a month with Heinz Cleaning Vinegar.

How can Heinz Cleaning Vinegar help you find cleaning solutions that work for your family? Did you know that natural cleaning could be so effective?

I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and HEINZ #CBias #SocialFabric. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are strictly my own.