Cleaning products have come a long way in the last thirty years, and that’s particularly evident in the “all-natural” category. People have begun to shy away from harsh chemicals, strong detergents, and caustic solvents, opting for more non-toxic cleaners.
While your best bet for a “natural” cleaner was just vinegar and soap for a long time, new formulations on household cleaners outclass that old combo, bringing with them superior cleaning and better health for you and your family.
So what is it that makes a cleaner “all-natural”? Truth be told, that name can mean a lot of things, but for the sake of the information we’re presenting to you, when we talk about a natural glass cleaner, we mean:
- A cleaner that doesn’t use synthetic chemicals. Sure, most of these products use distillation and chemical extraction processes to get the ingredients they need, but the source of those ingredients are plants or other items that occur naturally.
- These products are non-toxic, and that means safe for you, your family and your pets.
- The glass cleaners on this list are not only safe and natural but they clean. Natural is nice but if it’s not doing work, you might as well be wiping your windows with water.
So let’s dive into the ten best natural glass cleaners on the market, so you can make your glass surfaces sparkle and shine without worrying about toxins. We’ll be evaluating them on how natural they are, how well they work and their commitment to the planet.
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1. HAUS Naturals All-Natural Glass Cleaner (Streak-Free)
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When it comes to natural cleaning brands in general, HAUS Naturals is our favorite. We love the glass cleaner but also their granite cleaner, stainless steel cleaner and all-purpose cleaner.
If you like natural cleaning products like we do including for cleaning glass, you’ll love how effective this cleaner is. It’s streak-free but gets rid of smudges, streaks, grime, grease and more. It smells fabulous as well.
2. Better Life
Better Life cleaners are fully plant-derived, without sulfates, bleach, ammonia or other toxic chemicals, and though they’re scented, it’s nothing short of pleasant. Safe for glass, mirrors, plexiglass, fiberglass and all other surfaces that shine, it’s an effective but safe product for your entire home.
Ingredients: 100% natural plant surfactants from corn, coconuts and palm kernels – that’s it. In fact, the list of toxic chemicals they don’t include – which most other glass cleaners do – is significantly longer. If nothing else, seeing the comparison between a natural cleaner and a traditional product should give you pause about what you’re used to cleaning with.
Effectiveness: Better Life creates a streak-free shine with a spray and some light buffing with a dry cloth. It’s not great at cleaning off extremely sticky messes, like sticker or tape residue, but for daily cleaning, smudges, fingerprints and the like, it’s as good if not better than its chemical counterparts.
Eco-friendliness: All Better Life packaging is made from recycled material, formulated in a way that ensures it’s biodegradable, breaking down in the environment in about 4 years. They also avoid animal testing and of course, their products are 100% non-toxic.
3. Puracy
Puracy is an incredible brand that takes its dedication to your family and community seriously. Yes, I said community, because they invest some money from every purchase back into your local community. Additionally, the art on the bottles is made from independent, local artists.
Puracy was formulated by doctors to not only be eco-friendly, non-toxic and effective, but also hypoallergenic. It’s safe to use around pets and kids and works incredibly well at a variety of glass-offenders. While it’s made for streak-free glass cleaning, it can be safely used around the house as well.
Ingredients: Purified water, vegetable-based surfactants, all-natural and biodegradable preservative, sodium citrate and citric acid as a ph-balancer and natural fragrances. There’s nothing artificial or toxic in this bottle.
Effectiveness: Puracy is dedicated to cleaning while maintaining rigorous family health benchmarks. It cleans everything you can possibly stick to your windows from tape to paint. They do recommend using a microfiber cloth to gently rub out difficult messes after letting the product sit, however.
Eco-friendliness: Puracy is not tested on animals, it’s family safe and fully biodegradable. Even the packaging breaks down after a few years!
4. Ecos
Ecos is extremely dedicated to environmental protection in creating its products, and their cleaner works exceptionally well. It’s vinegar-based and can cut through most messes easily, though like Better Life it can have trouble with adhesives.
Ingredients: Plant-derived surfactants, vinegar, citric acid, water and denatured alcohol from corn. It’s all biodegradable and family safe.
Effectiveness: Ecos cleans well without damaging glass and without streaking. Additionally, the vinegar makes it a much more mild disinfectant than bleach or other alternatives. With that said, the fact that vinegar is the primary cleaning agent means you need to take care when using it on wood-paned windows or other places where glass meets porous surfaces.
Eco-friendliness: Easily one of the most eco-friendly companies on this list, Ecos is committed to the planet in several different ways:
- The packaging is biodegradable and made from recycled material
- The ingredients are ethically and sustainably sourced
- Ecos is manufactured in green-powered, carbon-neutral facilities
5. Seventh Generation
Seventh Generation is a well-respected and highly visible name in natural cleaners. Their glass surface cleaner is no exception to the fine quality of their other products, providing a powerful clean without all the harsh, toxic chemicals of other companies.
Ingredients: Plant-derived surfactants, corn-derived denatured alcohol, citric acid (as a stabilizer) and distilled water.
Effectiveness: Seventh Generation works best on clear glass and mirrors, where it cleans without streaking and since there are no abrasives, you can trust that it won’t ruin those surfaces. It’s less functional at cleaning heavily soiled glass, like stove tops or ceramics, where the plant-based surfactants are simply not as effective.
Eco-friendliness: Seventh Gen is a far-reaching natural cleaning company with commitments to recycled packaging, biodegradable ingredients and freedom from animal testing. Their products are also safe for greywater and septic systems, harmlessly breaking down in the dispersal systems and soil.
6. The Laundress
The Laundress is specifically formulated for mirrors and glass, and she’s incredibly good at leaving windows, mirrors and other glasswork streak-free and shining. With that said, however, this product is family and food-safe, so it can be used all over your kitchen, bathroom or wherever you have shining surfaces that need some attention.
Ingredients: Plant-derived surfactants, mineral oil and denatured alcohol from corn. This product isn’t diluted with water like many others are, so you can either dilute it to your liking or use it at full strength to handle difficult messes.
Effectiveness: Since it’s not diluted, The Laundress can tackle some hardcore grime. It’s effective on adhesives, paint, fingerprints, oils and dirt, but it works well as a pre-treatment on clothes, too. It’s great for cleaning up cooking or food preparation surfaces, due to its non-toxic nature.
Eco-friendliness: The Laundress is biodegradable and the packaging is made from post-consumer recycled plastic.
7. Frosch Natural Bio Spirit
Frosch is as natural as cleaning products come, with utter dedication to the health and safety of their customers and the environment. Their plant-derived surfactants are safe, all-natural and highly effective at cutting through grease and streaks, leaving a spot-free shine on glass and most smooth surfaces (it’s not great at cleaning porous material).
Ingredients: Plant-derived surfactants from fully renewable sources (coconut, corn and pine), denatured alcohol from corn, fragrance and distilled water. These ingredients are fully biodegradable and ethically sourced.
Effectiveness: Frosch Natural Bio Spirit is extremely effective at cutting through grease, which makes it great for glass stovetops as well as windows and mirrors. Though it’s not great on porous surfaces, you’d likely want a different cleaner for those anyway, so it’s hardly a negative.
Eco-friendliness: Frosch is dedicated to environmentally friendly practices; this product is vegan certified, with no animal testing and its ingredients are not only biodegradable but also harvested from fast-growing, renewable plants. Additionally, their facilities are connected to their own water treatment plant, giving them the ability to hold up their high standards of non-polluting, carbon-neutral production.
8. Bean And Lily
Ingredients: Water, polyquaternium-95, sodium propionate, caprylyl/myristyl glucoside and cocamidopropyl hydroxysultaine (all plant-derived cleaners, sodium citrate, natural fragrance (lemongrass). Bean And Lily is a perfect example of ingredients sounding scary but they’re simply scientific names for plant-based cleaners. They’re fully biodegradable and ethically sourced as well.
Effectiveness: The ph-neutral formulation cleans all glass surfaces well, without streaking, spotting or damaging the glass. It’s safe for use with wood pane windows because it won’t break down paint or porous material.
Eco-friendliness: Their motto is “do the job, do no harm” and they are committed to that. This product and their entire line of cleaners rapidly biodegrade, are non-toxic for people and animals and are safe for everyday use.
9. GAIA Natural Glass Cleaner
GAIA Natural Glass Cleaner is the brainchild of a biochemist and a health advocate who happen to be husband and wife. This is a family business, in the business of helping your family live clean and safe from harsh, toxic cleaning agents. Safe, cruelty-free and biodegradable, GAIA is a perfect cleaner for your all-natural home.
Ingredients: Plant-derived cleaners, food-grade mineral oil, essential oils (fragrance and surfactant), vinegar and distilled water. These products are safe around animals and children and can be used on all glass surfaces.
Effectiveness: GAIA is great for quick clean-ups as well as heavily streaked, dirty glass. Anyone with children will appreciate how little effort is involved in cleaning with this product; one quick spray and a dry cloth will get your mirrors and windows sparkling clean with hardly any effort.
Eco-friendliness: The husband-wife duo who created GAIA is committed to the environment as much as they are to your family’s health. These products are biodegradable, cruelty-free, and made from recycled materials and renewable materials.
10. Lemi Shine
Formulated with d-limonene, a powerful citrus extract, Lemi Shine is a unique product on this list. Rather than using the familiar plant surfactants from coconuts and the like, Lemi Shine uses a blend of citrus oils to cut through most grease and grime. Additionally, the product uses a plant starch that leaves a surprisingly streak-free barrier on your glass that repels oils and dirt, increasing the amount of time between cleanings.
Ingredients: Deionized water, ethanol, sodium laurel sulfate, citric extract, amphoteric modified starch (dirt repellant), sodium citrate, d-limonene and fragrance. Though some of these ingredients sound like chemical scariness, they’re all plant-derived and natural, making this product safe for your family and pets.
Effectiveness: The blend of citrus products in Lemi Shine is highly effective at cutting through dirt, particularly grease where other glass cleaners might have trouble. D-limonene is extremely potent at cleaning, but it can be a bit too effective, so it’s not safe for plastic and caution should be used when you’re cleaning glass that has other surfaces (like wood window panes).
Eco-friendliness: Lemi Shine is made from natural, biodegradable ingredients, and it’s safe for your family, but they do not have the layers of environmental protections that other companies on this list have. It’s still a great product, just not as planet-centric as all of the others.
11. Shine Society
This is a pretty cool product, in that it’s not only safe for your home‘s glass and mirrors, but it’s also specifically formulated to be safe for automotive glass. There’s a difference between car windows and home windows, and products designed for car glass are usually even more meticulous about being streak-free and non-abrasive. Shine Society also includes a disinfectant, killing 99.9% of viruses and bacteria on your glass surfaces.
Ingredients: Vinegar, citrus extract, denatured alcohol and distilled water. The label cautions that it can be an eye irritant – which makes sense as vinegar and citrus don’t play well with eyeballs – so good ventilation or at least a safe distance should be maintained when spraying it.
Effectiveness: Because Shine Society is formulated to work specifically on car windows while maintaining an all-natural ingredient list, it’s extremely effective and safe on all interior glass. The disinfectant makes it that much more appealing, and it does a great job at cutting through adhesive residue and oil-based messes.
Eco-friendliness: Like Lemi Shine, this product is safe for your home and family, but it’s not overly environmentally focused. While the liquid itself is rapidly biodegradable, there’s nothing to indicate from the company that the packaging is recycled or any other planet-centric measures are taken when manufacturing Shine Society.
