What should you keep a homemade cleaner in, and how should you label it?

Use a new spray bottle or jar made for cleaners. Never use anything that once held food or drink: no soda bottles, water bottles, milk jugs or jam jars, however well washed. Do not refill an emptied store-cleaner bottle either; Clorox's bleach safety data sheet says not to reuse empty containers, and Poison Control's advice is to keep each product in its original container. Glass suits vinegar mixes; peroxide stays in its own bottle. Every homemade bottle needs a label that says what is inside, when you made it, which products it must never meet, "Keep out of the reach of children," and the Poison Control number. This page explains each choice and gives a label you can copy.

Never a food or drink container

This is the firmest rule on the page, and it is stricter than one of the sources behind it.

Poison Control's rule is: "Never transfer something from its original container to a food or beverage container" [1]. Its case files show why. An elderly woman drank 8 ounces of hand dishwashing liquid that had been kept in a soft drink bottle; she breathed some into her lungs and spent several days on a ventilator. A man drank degreaser someone had stored in a green tea bottle, and it caused fatal swelling in his mouth and throat [1]. A second Poison Control article notes that adults, not only children, drink these products by mistake [2]. NMSU's G-313 agrees: "Do not use food containers for storing cleaning products" [3].

UF/IFAS takes a looser line. Its FCS3319 says "Never put cleaners in food containers," and its equipment list warns against containers "that children associate with food," but its closing section also suggests you "recycle old milk jugs and reuse canning jars for dispensers" [4]. The Northern New England Poison Center goes further still, saying that if a product must be kept in a drink bottle, the drink label should come off and the bottle should be clearly marked [5].

This page sets that reuse advice aside and follows Poison Control, NMSU and the product SDS: no food or drink container, ever, for any cleaner, and no emptied store-cleaner bottle [1][3][8]. The reason is the risk those sources describe. A familiar bottle shape tells the hand it is safe to drink, whoever is holding it and whatever the label says, and a milk jug or canning jar is as familiar to an adult as to a child.

Why an empty store-cleaner bottle is not a refill

An empty trigger bottle from a finished store cleaner looks like the obvious home for a homemade spray. The sources say not to use it that way. Clorox's safety data sheet for its regular bleach says, "Do not reuse empty containers" [8]. Poison Control's advice is to keep products in their original containers and to leave original labels on products you are still using [1] [2]. A refilled bottle carries the wrong label, so the next person to pick it up, or a poison specialist on the phone, would be told the wrong ingredients. There is a chemical reason as well: a bottle that held a bleach cleaner and then gets vinegar is one of the ways bleach and acid meet at home [7], and CDC's rule is never to mix bleach or any disinfectant with any other cleaner [6].

So the routine for homemade bottles is:

1. Start with a new, empty spray bottle or jar made for cleaners, one per recipe.
2. Label it before you fill it, with the contents written in full, so the bottle is never unlabeled even for a minute.
3. Keep it for one recipe. If a bottle has held your vinegar spray, keep it for that spray, and rinse it with plain water between batches.
4. Let a finished store product go as its label directs; the disposal page covers empty containers and leftovers.

Glass or plastic, by what is inside

No source reviewed for this page has tested how homemade mixes behave in different bottles over time. What the sources do say, and what is known from the ingredients, is summarized here.

How different plastics stand up to acids, alkalis, alcohols, d-limonene and peroxide, from dated resin charts, is set out on the plastic compatibility page. The rubbing alcohol page explains evaporation and flammability, and the hydrogen peroxide page explains why it is sold in an opaque bottle.

What to write on the label

UF/IFAS: "If you make your own cleaner, always label it" [4]. NMSU: "Label mixed solutions and keep them out of reach of children" [3]. Poison Control adds that when a product must be moved to another container, the original label information and the poison center number should go on the new one [2].

A complete homemade label has six lines:

1. Name of the cleaner, in plain words: "Vinegar window cleaner."
2. What is in it, with amounts: "1 cup distilled white vinegar, 1 cup water." If a child swallows it, this is what Poison Control will ask.
3. Date made. No extension or agency source gives a tested shelf life for unpreserved homemade mixes, and UF/IFAS advises mixing "just what you need" and using it all [4]. The date tells you how old it is; the homemade shelf life page explains what is and is not known.
4. Never-mix warning naming the products it must not meet. For an acid such as vinegar: "Never mix with bleach." For a mix with ammonia or alcohol: "Never mix with bleach." For peroxide: "Never mix with vinegar or bleach." The reasons are on the never-mix page.
5. Keep out of the reach of children.
6. Poison Control: 1-800-222-1222.

A filled-in example:

VINEGAR WINDOW CLEANER 1 cup distilled white vinegar, 1 cup water (NMSU G-313) Made: Oct 22, 2026 NEVER MIX WITH BLEACH. Keep out of the reach of children. Poison Control 1-800-222-1222

A label written in ballpoint on paper will smear the first time a wet hand picks up the bottle. Use a waterproof marker on a waterproof label, or cover a paper label with clear packing tape. The page on labels that stay on covers label materials in more detail.

Where the labeled bottles go next

A labeled bottle still needs a safe place to live. The children and pets page covers storing cleaners where small hands and paws cannot reach them, and the storage page covers heat, cold and keeping acids, bleach and ammonia apart.

References

1. Poison Control (National Capital Poison Center), Soloway R.A.G., *What Belongs in a Soft Drink Bottle? The Dangers of Container Transfers*, undated, read October 2026. https://www.poison.org/articles/what-belongs-in-a-soft-drink-bottle
2. Poison Control (National Capital Poison Center), May M.E., *Container Transfers*, undated, read October 2026. https://www.poison.org/articles/container-transfers
3. New Mexico State University Cooperative Extension Service, Griffiths R. and Koukel S. (rev.), *Green Alternatives to Toxic Household Products*, Guide G-313, revised February 2019. https://pubs.nmsu.edu/_g/G313/index.html
4. University of Florida IFAS Extension, Griffin A. and Cantrell R.A., *Homemade Household Cleaners*, FCS3319, Release Date October 7, 2025. https://ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/FY1449
5. Northern New England Poison Center, *Why You Should Keep Products in Their Original Containers*, February 13, 2018. https://www.nnepc.org/poison-prevention/why-you-should-keep-products-in-their-original-containers
6. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, *Cleaning and Disinfecting with Bleach*, last reviewed April 24, 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/hygiene/about/cleaning-and-disinfecting-with-bleach.html
7. Poison Control (National Capital Poison Center), Williams A. and Klein-Schwartz W., *Chlorine Gas*, undated, read October 2026. https://www.poison.org/articles/chlorine-gas
8. The Clorox Company, Safety Data Sheet: Clorox Regular Bleach2, revision 3, December 9, 2020. https://www.thecloroxcompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/US001153-Clorox-Regular-Bleach2_3.pdf