Practical Household Chemicals: A Biased Overview

Most of us have a good idea of how our food is made and what it consists of (maybe except for ultra-processed foods which you should avoid anyway), but most of us are chemically illiterate out of convenience, and thus dependent on proprietary commercial mystery solutions that are marketed to us individually for every single household task.

As a part of my efforts toward more minimalism and self-sufficiency, a while ago I have been researching what are the best all-rounder chemicals to have at home for various purposes. In this short post I want to summarize my notes and present my curated list of chemicals I think everybody should either have at home, or at least be aware of. I will update this post whenever I find something new worthy of being mentioned here. As usual, the disclaimer is: I am not a chemist, just a layperson interested in understanding a bit more about everyday things.

Safety First

Chemicals must be stored in suitable containers, not every plastic or glass container is appropriate. HDPE is usually a good choice, PET used food and drinks not so much. When using glass jars, do not use them to store corrosive chemicals if they have a metallic lid. Ideally the container is opaque, if it is not it should at least be tinted (e.g. brown glass), but in any case you should try to keep it in a cool and dry place, as usual.

Mandatory reminder to be careful when handling acids and bases, accidentally mixing them is usually a very bad idea. Acids can corrode metals, bases attack varnish and acrylic glass. Wear gloves when handling chemicals that are not close to pH-neutral, and always wear gloves when in doubt.

Chemical Substances

Salts

Kitchen Salt (NaCl)

Salt is not only crucial for cooking, you can also use it to make your own chlorine-based bleach or disinfectant.

Calcium chloride (CaCl2)

This is the standard for chemical air dehumidification. In rooms where you regularly have relative humidity above 60% for longer periods of time and thus increased risk of mold, you can pull some water out of the air by placing around 1kg of it in an old sock and put that sock on some mesh on top of a container. It is of course slower than an electric dehumidifier, but is also much cheaper and will not impact your electricity bill.

Alcohols

Isopropanol (IPA) (>70%)

Used in many sanitizers and also for cleaning and degreasing electronics, such as displays or keyboards. It quickly evaporates leaving no trace and is clearly a must-have.

Oils

Orange oil (d-Limonene) (>90%)

Excellent solvent for removing glue residues and decomposing softening agents. Mix pure orange oil 1:1 with IPA, apply that to a surface with sticky glue residue and let it sit for a while. Then mechanically scrub off using soap. Repeat multiple times if needed.

Note that you can use any typical kitchen oil for that purpose as well, but it will just not be so effective. I was able to remove very stubborn glue with orange oil effortlessly where with more common oils it would have been much more work.

Tensides

Tensides do the heavy-lifting for many cleaning tasks, because they bind fat and dirt effectively. If you want to mix your own cleaning solutions, there are two widely available categories of tensides in a reasonably pure form.

Natural

Soaps are the most common and simple form of tensides and are made from animal or plant fats. One disadvantage of soap is that it can leave residue on surfaces, especially when used with hard water. Also soap is strongly degreasing, which can be an issue if you have very sensitive skin. It is known and produced since antiquity and works.

Synthetic

Modern off-the-shelf liquid soaps or dishwashing detergents are based on synthetic tensides. Ideally get some with no scents and other optional additives (usually sold as “sensitive”) and this will be the closest to pure synthetic tensides you can get as a regular person.

Bases

Baking Soda (Sodium hydrogen carbonate)

Baking soda is slightly alkali and is slightly mechanically abrasive. It is not the best choice for any given task, but its versatility and ubiquity earns it a place on the must-have list. Every grandma probably can list more than half a dozen applications for baking soda, I will list a few:

• mild cleaning agent
• helps against heartburn
• simple and effective deodorant
• pH-up for hydroponics
• main ingredient of baking powder
• key ingredient for various fun experiments you can do with kids

Washing Soda (Sodium carbonate)

Less known than baking soda, but can be considered to be its stronger cousin (i.e., you should wear gloves). Can be used for cleaning tasks where baking soda is not strong enough and is a key ingredient of washing powder. It can remove nasty stains on white baby clothing (just let dirty clothes sit for a while in it before washing as usual), so I can say for sure it is pretty effective.

Sodium percarbonate

A possible washing powder additive that is responsible for bleaching, as at higher temperatures it reacts to washing soda (see above) and hydrogen peroxide (see further below). While one probably should be aware of it, I have to confess that I have not used it yet. If you are not planning to mix your own washing powder, you probably do not need it.

Sodium hydroxide (NaOH)

You know that one from school and usually you do not need it at home, unless you have clogged drains and nothing else helps. If you buy some drain cleaner, one of these with all those red warnings on the package, it will probably be based on sodium hydroxide. I definitely do not keep it around at home when not necessary, it makes me feel uncomfortable.

Acids

Citric acid

Weak organic acid that can be used as descaler, so it is a common ingredient in cleaning solutions. You can buy it as powder and mix to appropriate concentrations. Supposedly it can form solid calcium citrate in hard water, i.e. accidentally making it worse, so it is not ideal for descaling e.g. fine meshes of e.g. taps, as you might ruin them completely. But it can be used for most surfaces and devices like water boilers.

I strictly prefer citric acid over the disgusting acetic acid (which I even refuse to mention in its own section). In many cases they can be used interchangeably, but acetic acid is more corrosive on metals. As its only upside acetic acid does not have an issues like the citrate formation. I have never experienced that problem though, so I am perfectly happy with citric acid.

Sulfamic acid

Pretty universal professional descaler. Has no downsides I know of, except for being quite expensive. I bought some just for the rare cases where citric acid would not be adequate.

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)

Weak acid, strong bleach at high concentrations, decent disinfectant at low concentrations (typically 3%). Dissolves cleanly into H2 and O2, i.e. leaving no problematic residues. Unfortunately has a limited shelf life, i.e. not suitable for long-term storage in the basement.

As disinfectant these days I prefer hypochlorous acid, which has even shorter shelf life, but which can be made at home on-demand from a tiny bit of salt and is a much better disinfectant at similar concentrations.

Phosphoric acid

If you do hydroponics, you should know and have this at home (at some >60% concentration 250mL of it will last for years). Diluted phosphoric acid is excellent pH-down (I use a 1:100 solution). It is an anorganic strong acid, making it very stable.

Conclusion

Not all of the mentioned chemicals are relevant to everyone equally, but this is the list of chemical supplies that I either already have stocked up on, or I keep in the back of my mind.

Of course there are many more commonly available chemicals that could be mentioned here, especially ones used for technical or crafting purposes, but for common household cleaning tasks with universal relevance, I think the list is pretty complete.

Investing some time to research some basic chemical substances and their properties demystifies that whole topic and shows that for many tasks, just like our grandparents, you can easily create adequate solutions yourself from basic inexpensive ingredients.

I think that this is both interesting and empowering.

Let me know if there is some useful chemical you swear by that you think is missing on my list!