Cleaner’s Compendium: A Breakdown of Common Cleaning Products

Where do you keep all your cleaning supplies and products? Under the kitchen sink? In your laundry? Wherever they may be, we won’t ask you to pull them all out for the sake of this article because you’ll be bound to have a fair amount of them.

Nowadays, there’s a cleaning product for every room and every household task. It can be tricky figuring out how best to use them, let alone how often they’re supposed to be used.

Thankfully, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to break down your home’s most common categories of cleaning products below. Read on to unearth a few little mysteries of the domestic variety.

Carpet and rug cleaners

Carpet and rug cleaners can range from carpet shampoos, carpet scrubs and brushes, and formulas that can be used with a wet and dry vacuum cleaner.

Carpet cleaners generally have to be quite thorough and tend to focus on deep cleaning to ensure that no bacteria is able to build up between your carpet fibres. As a result, it’s common for carpet shampoos and formulas to smell fragrant, but still rather concentrated.

If you’re not one for fragrant cleaners, consider using a quality steam cleaner instead. Cleaning with steam can leave your carpets and rugs feeling light and fresh with minimal scents, which is also why steam cleaners are staples in households where people have allergies.

Glass, metal, and surface cleaners

Sleek surfaces like chrome and glass can be rather pesky to keep clean. Surface cleaners tend not to use too many surfactants because suds can leave stains that leave reflective surfaces looking a little worse for wear.

For this reason, liquid ammonia is commonly used as a solvent in many of your more popular store-bought glass and surface cleaners. The role of the solvent is to essentially maintain the consistency of the cleaner, to keep the development of suds to a minimum.

If you’d prefer not to use products that contain ammonia, you’ll be happy to hear that you can actually make your own vinegar-based glass cleaner quite easily.

Disinfectants

Domestic disinfectants are predominantly made up of antimicrobial agents and soaping agents, which means they’re fantastic at keeping a great variety of surfaces free from bacteria as well as ensuring they smell fresh too.

You can buy disinfectants in either a liquid form for mopping and other floor treatments, in a spray for tabletops, or as sanitary wipes. The issue with disinfectants is that they can be too strong to use in spaces where food preparation will be likely to occur.

Be cautious when it comes to using antibacterial wipes on your kitchen countertops!

Natural cleaners

Of course, amidst all the chemical cleaners you see on the shelves at the supermarket, you’ll also be likely to see all-natural products such as cleaning vinegars, citrus sprays, and the inestimable baking soda!

You may even be able to find these natural cleaners sandwiched within the ingredients listed of store-bought cleaners too.

Similar to cleaning with steam, these natural alternatives can be particularly valuable if you’re looking to avoid using heavy scents and chemicals in your cleaning process, or even if you share your household with people who have allergies.

As you can see, household cleaners can come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and styles, and they can have a hodgepodge of different purposes too. Be sure to equip yourself with a little variety of cleaning products so you can gauge exactly which products are best suited to your home.

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