You don’t need tens of different cleaning products to keep the place spick and span. Most cleaning can be done simply with dish soap/ Castile soap, and mixtures of good old vinegar, salt, chlorine bleach, and baking soda. But for some heavy duty cleaning tasks, specialised products are simply best.
For one, separate cleaners for the bathroom and kitchen are more effective at their respective jobs than all-purpose cleaners, as they are geared at tackling very different sets of stains and messes. High-pH kitchen cleaners are better at breaking down grease and proteins, for example, while much harsher and low-pH bathroom cleaners are made to kill more germs and break down mineral deposits. Keeping this in mind, there is a good exception to be made – an acidic bathroom cleaner such as toilet bowl cleaner, can be used to tackle tough mineral build up on taps.
Here are four specially formulate products, heavy-hitters so to speak, that we recommend adding to your cleaning arsenal.
1: Bar Keeper’s Friend
Those who know, know. The cleanser removes tarnish, greasy build-up/burns from pots, pans and other kitchenware like magic. One of our writers cleaned her grandmother’s cupcake tins, and the difference was like night and day. Just one small spot remained. What’s more, it took practically no time for decades of use to be erased. Use on stainless steel, aluminium, glass and bronze to make these items shine like brand new. Oxalic acid, found in rhubarb, is the active ingredient powering this product.
2: Oven cleaner
A paste made of baking soda does work quite well, but is a little less reliable and a lot more fussy and time-consuming than using specialised over cleaner, especially if you’re dealing with a very dirty oven with lots of burnt-on grease. Oven cleaners typically have a pH of 11-13, baking soda 8-9. Use gloves when using oven cleaner.
The second tip is to simply allow the product enough time to work. That’s more important than choosing the right brand. Spray on with an even coat, and if things are really bad, cover it with paper towel or plastic wrap to keep it damp for hours. Then, wipe away. No elbow grease required.
3: Tide laundry detergent
Various consumer reports over the years have rated Tide Ultra, as well as close runner-up Persil Pro Clean, bounds ahead of the pack when it comes to the best laundry detergents – able to handle dirt, grease, sweat, food stains, odour, and all the other nasty things you can possibly associate with laundry. However, they come with a heftier price-tag.
We recommend getting a good laundry detergent, such as all®, for most regular washes. Not every laundry load needs the extra-heavy cleaning, and it comes in at about half the price as Tide Ultra. With both on hand, you’ll ultimately save money by using the stronger product for stronger jobs (think of sports clothes, work clothes exposed to lots of grease and sweat), and the good product for regular jobs. Note: Tide Simply Clean & Fresh (yellow packaging) is Tide’s budget line, and is not the same strong formula as Tide Ultra.
Keep in mind when choosing a laundry detergent, that many cheap offerings are simply watered down, and don’t do a good job. Make sure to look at the number of loads, written on the front of the bottle, which indicates the concentration of the detergent. Sometimes big bottles, that appear to be the cheapest, are the same price of smaller bottles when you look at the price per load.
4. OxiClean stain remover
OxiClean is a colour-safe chlorine-bleach alternative that removes difficult stains and brightens dull clothes. America’s Test Kitchen put the seven bestselling laundry stain removers through a barrage of tests – using the worst food stains they could think of – and OxiClean outperformed them all, hands down.
