Your Recipe: Homemade Streak-Free Glass Cleaner

Your Recipe: Homemade Streak-Free Glass Cleaner

Streaks on glass come from leftover soap, oils and mineral residue. This recipe attacks all three. Water carries the dirt, white vinegar cuts hard-water film and light oils, and 70% isopropyl alcohol helps the spray evaporate quickly so it does not sit and leave marks. A typical batch is 1 cup water, 1/2 cup vinegar and 1/2 cup rubbing alcohol. Distilled water leaves fewer spots than tap water if your water is hard, and a folded microfiber or lint-free cloth beats paper towels for the final buff.

Where not to use it: window film makers advise ammonia-free cleaners, and this recipe has none, but we found no film maker guidance on vinegar or alcohol, so check your film's care instructions before spraying it on tinted or coated film. Skip it on TVs, phone and laptop displays: Apple, for example, says to avoid window cleaners and household cleaners on its screens, so follow your device maker's guide. Keep it off natural stone tabletops, because the Natural Stone Institute says vinegar and other acids may dull or etch calcareous stone, and check before using it on wood frames and rubber seals. Avoid using it in direct hot sun, where it dries before you can wipe. Alcohol is flammable, so keep it away from stoves, candles and heaters while you spray. This mix cleans and does not disinfect.

The never-mix rules are firm. Never combine this glass cleaner with bleach; the CDC says never to mix bleach with any other cleaner, and bleach with vinegar releases chlorine gas. Transport Canada's CANUTEC also warns that alcohol-based cleaners mixed with bleach can create chloroform. Do not add ammonia-based glass cleaner such as commercial blue spray to the bottle. Never put hydrogen peroxide into the same bottle as vinegar, because they form peracetic acid. Label the bottle 'Glass cleaner: water, vinegar, alcohol. Flammable. Not for screens' with the date, use a bottle that never held another cleaner, and store it capped, cool and away from kids and pets.

If you accidentally spray this where bleach or ammonia was used and notice fumes, leave, ventilate and stop. If a mix goes wrong, leave the room and get fresh air right away, open windows, keep kids and pets out, and call Poison Help at 1-800-222-1222 (US, America's Poison Centers). Call 911 for trouble breathing, chest pain, or if someone collapses. To make it, pour the water in first, then add the vinegar and alcohol, cap and swirl. Mist the glass lightly instead of soaking it, wipe in an S pattern, then buff dry. Use the window cleaner calculator below to scale the mix for a larger bottle or to adjust the alcohol share.

Source: CDC, Cleaning and Disinfecting with Bleach; CDC, Chemical Disinfectants (alcohols are flammable and evaporate rapidly); Transport Canada CANUTEC, Improper mixing of common household cleaning products; Glass Tint USA, Care and Cleaning of Your Window Tint, and American Window Film, Window Film Cleaning Instructions (ammonia-free cleaners); Apple Support, How to clean your Apple products; Natural Stone Institute, consumer guidance on cleaning natural stone. Note: we found no published standard for this recipe; the proportions are a common home recipe.

General household-cleaning guidance, not medical or professional advice. The label on your product always wins; never mix cleaning products. For a poisoning emergency call Poison Help at 1-800-222-1222 (US), or 911 if someone has trouble breathing.

How Streak-free glass cleaner compares

* Illustrative starting amounts and notes, rounded -- use the calculators below for your exact numbers, and always check your product label.