The Best Cleaning Products You’ll Wish You Knew About Sooner
Cleaning the house can be a real nightmare sometimes. Rust stains from leaky faucets. Rings around the toilet bowl and bathtub. Stains in the carpet and upholstery. But so many cleaning supplies out there just don’t do the trick.
What if you could find the right cleaners for everything? That would make life easier for sure. Take a gander at these supplies — and don’t judge them by their names. Many function as a multi-cleaner for stuff you’d never expect.
Folex Carpet Spot Remover
Folex Carpet Spot Remover is a fantastic spot cleaner for carpets, but it does so much more. It works with both old and new stains — even red wine — as long as it’s color-safe material. Don’t use it for dyed wool, silk or dry-clean only materials.
If you’ve got a spot on your car upholstery, couch, or carpet, this will get it up. Rust, wine, blood and even oil can all be removed with it. According to users, it even works on stains that others just make worse or that you’ve given up on over the years.
Barkeeper’s Friend
Bartenders have known about this fantastic cleaning product for ages, but for many of us who aren’t behind the bar, it’s a newer discovery. It seriously works wonders for just about every surface you’ve got. You simply spread the Barkeeper’s Friend over your glass and buff it a little, and magically, it’s shiny and clear.
Use the same process on stovetops, sinks, pots, pans and bakeware. Have a faucet that just won’t come clean? It does that, too. Tile, dishwashers, bathtubs, shower doors, grills and furniture, too. It really does it all.
Method Daily Shower
The best method for anything is always prevention. Using a daily shower spray can help prevent scum buildup in glass-enclosed showers, but it has to be the right spray to be truly effective.
Method Daily Shower spray is biodegradable, non-toxic and absolutely does the trick. You just need to keep a bottle in the shower area and spray it daily. You won’t need to scrub, especially if you use a squeegee. Plus, the spray helps to block mildew. It’s an all-around amazing product.
Therapy Premium Stainless Steel Cleaner and Polish
One of the toughest things to keep clean in any kitchen is a stainless-steel appliance. You can wipe it down quickly, but those spots pop back up as soon as it dries. Glass cleaner just doesn’t quite work, or do most stainless-steel cleaners.
Therapy Premium Stainless-Steel Cleaner and Polish can fix that for you. It works well for wiping down stainless-steel and makes appliances fingerprint-resistant so the smudges and smears don’t come back for weeks at a time.
Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Cleaner Gel Kit
For a nearly magical clean toilet bowl, check out the Scrubbing Bubbles stamp-in gel kit. It only takes about two seconds to apply and keeps working every time you flush the toilet. The sparkling clean stays for weeks and weeks.
You just press it in beneath the rim after you do a standard toilet cleaning. Re-apply every 12 days or so in a place that won’t get “aimed” at much by certain family members. It’s the perfect option for anyone who needs to keep things clean but doesn’t have much time.
Plastic Plumbing Snake for Drains
There’s nothing quite so annoying as a clogged sink drain. You brush your teeth and wash your hands, and by the time you’re done, the sink is full of foamy, pasty water. Better call the plumber. Or at least, use Liquid Plumber. Or maybe not.
If you can find a plastic plumbing snake for drains, you probably won’t have to call a plumber again for quite some time. They’re simple to use, work in just about any sink or shower drain and they don’t cost much. In fact, you can even find them at some dollar stores.
Makeup Brush Spinner
If you hold your makeup brush up against a brand-new one of the same model, you’ll notice a huge color difference. That’s because the old brush is loaded with your dead skin cells and makeup, which means you need to do some cleaning.
The makeup brush spinner can be charged via USB, offers three speeds, and can dry brushes with the use of just two glass bowls. There are also eight different adapters to ensure you’ve got the right size for whatever brushes you’ve got.
Dryer Sheets
You probably already know how wonderful dryer sheets are for making your clothes light and fluffy while adding a lovely scent. However, they can do so much more than just add some oomph to your towels. In fact, they can clean a lot of different household items you otherwise can’t quite scrub clean.
Even if they’ve already been used in the dryer, you can repurpose these little sheets to buff water spots from mirrors, kitchen fixtures and shower doors. Have a nasty ring inside the toilet that won’t go away? Use dryer sheets on that, too.
Skylerlife Home Mold and Mildew Remover Gel
That nasty black ring of mildew in the bathtub is one of the most disgusting, unhealthy and frustrating things you can find as you work on cleaning the house. You can scrub and scrub, but it never seems to go away. Even if you manage to make it vanish, it comes back all too quickly.
Skylerlife Home decided that this problem needed to be solved. Their concentrated gel is made from a formula that clings to silicone sealants to kill mold and mildew and prevent it from coming back any time soon.
A Lemon and Some Coffee Grounds
Ever noticed a nasty odor coming up from your garbage disposal? Well, there are a couple of natural things you probably have in your kitchen that can help with this stinker of an issue. First, dump out your coffee grounds into the sink and run cold water down with them until the disposal clears out.
Next, slice up a lemon or two and send down the slices along with that cold water again. Both help with the smell, but the lemon also tackles the nasty germs that keep that gross smell coming back.
Baking Soda
This wonder product of the kitchen is not only great for helping certain baked goods rise and fluff, but also for treating tons of different appliances and surfaces around the house. For example, if you dust some baking soda on the inside of the ceramic sink basin, lightly sprinkle it with water, let it stand for a few minutes and then wipe it away with a gentle cloth or paper towel, you can remove even bad smells and stains.
Need to clean the microwave? Combine baking soda and water and let it cook in the microwave until boiling. Wipe out the microwave with a paper towel, and bam: clean and sparkling.
Dryer Vent Coil Brushes
If you ask a fireman what the most common cause of housefires is, he’ll likely answer that it’s the lint-filled vents on dryers. You might be fantastic at cleaning out the lint trap before starting up the next load, but lint travels back into the vent and gets trapped.
Using a dryer vent coil brush to fully remove could not only save you a house fire, but it might even your life. You can find these for sale on sites like Amazon for less than $20. They make cleaning that vent so much easier, even when you need to go around the corner in there.
Bottle Bright Biodegradable Tablets
This amazing cleaner is not just exceptionally useful, but also fairly safe so that you don’t have to worry about more chemicals entering your home. It comes as a pack of fizzing tablets that offer deep cleaning power for anything that’s caked with coffee or tea stains.
They’re completely biodegradable, environmentally safe, and chlorine-free. They come individually packaged, too, so no fear of getting them wet when you get the next one out. They work perfectly for cleaning stainless steel bottles, pots, mugs, Camelbaks and even casserole dishes that you just can’t get clean.
Iron Out Rust Stain Remover
If you live in an older house that hasn’t had a plumbing update in decades, you’re probably in the market for a great rust stain remover. Iron Out works for cleaning up just about anything that’s got rust stains on it.
The best part is that you don’t have to scrub anything. You just apply the rust remover and watch it dissolve the stain right before your eyes. Just wear a mask and run some ventilation while working with it in an enclosed area.
The Diamond Dazzle Stik
If you’ve got some jewelry that’s not quite shining like it used to, then you’ll love Diamond Dazzle Stik. It takes just a few dabs of the gentle solution before you see a noticeable shine return.
Just twist the base on the stick to dispense the solution into the bristles, brush them over your jewelry, rinse everything with water and then viola! It’s all clean and sparkling. It works for every kind of gem and metal, although not for pearls. It’s also inexpensive. Win-win.
Drill Scrub Brushes
If you’ve got a difficult tub to clean or something similar on the horizon, you may well want to invest in scrub brushes that can be used on a drill. They can tackle anything where stubborn dirt has found a home — well, except for fabrics.
Some brands of brushes offer three different bristle-stiffnesses to help meet your exact needs, and most come in multipacks in different sizes and styles for various cleaning projects.
Hope’s Perfect Sink Cleaner and Polish
If you’ve got an older stainless-steel or porcelain sink, you know how tough rust and hard stains can be. That means you’ll have an appreciation for Hope’s Perfect Sink Cleaner and Polish. It makes everything shiny in just about no time at all.
It works for stainless-steel, ceramics, appliances, countertops or anything else that’s challenging to clean. While it’s best to double check the label beforehand, it’s great for just about every kind of surface in the home. It specifically gets that nasty black film off stainless-steel anything.
Stonetech Oil Stain Remover
If you’ve got a stone surface in your kitchen, whether it’s a pizza stone, granite counter or marble platter, you can find a good use for this amazing oil stain remover from Stonetech. It works wonders on basically any kind of stone, whether sealed or polished.
Limestone, marble, granite, travertine, slate, sandstone, masonry, concrete and even ceramics and porcelain tile grout clean up magically with this stuff. Just follow the directions and let it dry completely for the full 72-hours prescribed on the package. Then, scrape it off with something like a credit card. It’s like magic.
The Ringer
This unique cleaning apparatus is unlike anything else you’ll find in the kitchen, and it’s extremely effective at cleaning up that cast iron skillet or griddle you’ve struggled with over the years. The Ringer is basically a cast iron scrubber made of chainmail like the Knights of the Round Table used to wear.
It’s dishwasher safe, too, which is a huge bonus. With this thing, you can properly clean even cast iron, as you don’t need soap with it to get off the remnants of overcooked meat, eggs and other things.
ChomChom Roller Pet Hair Remover
Have a dog or cat that leaves more fur behind than you thought possible? Then you might want to check out the ChomChom Roller Pet Hair Remover. According to real-life users, it’s an amazingly useful little gadget that ends the insane layer of fluff everywhere.
The roller doesn’t rely on adhesive paper like most others of its kind. In fact, it’s reusable without any further purchases, so it’s a great investment. Even if you’ve got a Noah’s Ark situation in terms of animals in your home, you’ll find this brush does the trick.
OXO Good Grips Electronics Cleaning Brush
Some of the most challenging things to keep clean in any house or office are the computers and other electronics, making a good electronics brush exceptionally important. Something that can get into all those crevices and cracks is critical, and most of the options out there just aren’t that great.
Fortunately, the OXO Good Grips Electronics Cleaning Brush is a great way to get those keyboards and edges clean. The brush removes dust and particles, while the rubber scraper on the other end gets into cracks and edges to scrape out the rest.
Turtle Wax
Turtle Wax is great for keeping your car glossy and beautiful, but it’s got some amazing benefits for inside the house, too. Specifically, Turtle Wax does wonders for helping you clean out vents in your car and house alike.
You just apply the Turtle Wax to the vents every so often to keep them glossy. That in turn enables you to swipe the vents with a soft cloth or paper towel, removing loads of dirt, dust and grime. You’ve got to love a virtually effortless clean.
Easy-Off Fume Free Oven Cleaner
Cleaning the oven is another one of those annoying and oftentimes challenging household tasks. The fumes from such cleaners are pretty awful — especially in a closed space — and you have to wait forever for them to work. Even then, it’s still kind of gross.
However, the Easy Off Fume Free Oven Cleaner is a huge help in a lot of ways. Instead of being trapped in the house with awful odors while the oven cleans, you spray and leave to let the stuff do its work. Afterward, you’ll find it much easier to scrub away the grime than before.
Howard Feed-N-Wax Wood Treatments
If you’ve got some wood with finish damage, you’ll be glad to hear about Howard Feed-N-Wax Wood Polish & Conditioner. It’s super easy to use and quickly restores a finish after minor damage.
If you have more intense damage to your wood finish, you’d do well to lay down the brand’s Restore-A-Finish first. It helps to hide scratches, white heat rings, deep watermarks and other traumatic finish damage. Then, apply the cleaner and polish to top off the healing and add a layer of protection.
Pumice Stones
You know those volcanic rock bits smooshed together into a foot-cleaner stone? They’re not just great for scrubbing loose dead skin from your rough heels. They’re also amazing for removing other stains and grime from things in your household.
Get a pumice stone wet and you can use it scrub the hob on the stove and oven. You can even use a dry one to de-pill your sweaters and clean up pet hair from furniture.
Goo Gone
When something sticky gets onto your furniture, tile, or other surfaces, there’s one amazing cleaning product that you’ll be thankful to have on hand: Goo Gone. It removes epoxy and other glues as well as sticker residue from glass, wood, stone and other materials.
You can also use Goo Gone to remove gum or even grease that gets onto wood veneer, exhaust vents and more. Just follow the simple instructions to clear it all away in minutes with very little effort. Everything will be like new again.
Reusable Bamboo “Paper” Towels
While paper towels are nothing new, these reusable bamboo “paper” towels are definitely useful for anyone who regularly uses paper towels that get tossed in the trash after every meal or clean-up.
These bamboo sheets are machine washable and come on a roll like paper towels. However, because they’re washable, you can save up to six months’ worth of paper towels thanks to their efficiency. They’re tough, strong and incredibly absorbent. They save you money, but they’re also eco-friendly. An excellent combination.
Oh Yuk Jetted Tub Cleaner for Jacuzzis
Jacuzzis are amazingly relaxing, right up until the moment when you realize you must clean them. You can easily clean the tub itself with the right cleaning supplies, but what about the jets?
Oh Yuk Jetted Tub Cleaner for Jacuzzis is designed specifically to run through your system as a normal part of your cleaning routine. It helps to kill off germs in the jet system any time you use them. Just follow the instructions.
Microfiber Blind Dusters
Some of the worst places in any house for collecting dust are the window blinds, but unless you feel like taking a sponge and spending four hours cleaning each window set, they’re frustratingly difficult to clean.
However, with a microfiber blinds duster, you can get every dot of grime, grain of dust and bit of yuck with a few simple sweeps of the hand. You can firmly grab two blinds at a time with it and wipe them clean in about 10 minutes time. It’s wonderful.
Mr. Clean Magic Eraser
This one is a cleaning item that you’ve probably heard of, But you likely didn’t buy into the hype. It seems like it’s just way too good to be true. If you have ever used one, though, you’ll know that the hype isn’t over-the-top after all.
Magic Erasers work for getting off dark stains from walls, ceramic tubs and sinks, counters and pretty much any other surface in your home without damaging it. They’re especially useful for getting rid of those weird pink mold stains in the tub.