9 Tips This Cleaning Editor Wants Everyone to Know

After a decade of writing about the subject, these are the life-changing lessons I want to share.

Leslie Corona is the Senior Home Editor at REAL SIMPLE magazine. She has been styling, organizing, writing, and reporting on all things in the home space for a decade. She was previously at Good Housekeeping, HGTV Magazine, and Parents. She has shared her expertise on the TODAY show, Cheddar, and local television news outlets.

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I'm pretty lucky I can say I genuinely love my job. As a home editor, I get to write about all the fun things, like decorating, organizing, gardening, etc. But cleaning is probably the area I’m most passionate about, and I’ve been writing about it for exactly 10 years now. After working at multiple home magazines, I have interviewed countless cleaning experts and scientists for my stories. I've visited labs, I’ve tested all the products and hacks out there, and I’m usually the first to see any cool new cleaning tech roll out. Basically, I know a lot about cleaning.

But there’s a lot I wish other people knew! Sure, technically I’ve already passed along much of my knowledge through my stories over the years, but I wanted to consolidate the best advice I live by and swear by, here. If you’re curious to hear what my key takeaways are from years of covering cleaning, read on.

I’m just going to come out and say it: Vinegar is slightly overrated. I might be a little biased because the tangy smell isn’t exactly my favorite (yes, I know it fades), but my biggest issue with people’s vinegar obsession is that they believe it can be applied to any and every surface, plus they claim it kills germs. I can understand the appeal because it’s super-affordable and edible, making it a very safe, eco-friendly cleaner, but there’s a lot of misinformation out there. Vinegar can’t be applied to many natural stone countertops, like marble, or you run the risk of etching them. Skip using it on hardwood floors as well. And please, never spritz vinegar on a surface thinking it’ll actually disinfect anything—it’s not a registered disinfectant with the Environmental Protection Agency. (I’ve asked many microbiologists how effective it is at killing germs, and I can almost feel their pained expression through the phone.) Now that that’s out of the way, I do think vinegar does have many other redeeming qualities. It’s boss as a laundry ingredient. Replace your fabric softener with the stuff! And it is pretty good at deodorizing, once the notorious sour scent dissipates, that is. And soap scum is no match for vinegar’s acidic powers, so it’s a great bathroom cleaner too.

I know, I’m probably harping on your favorite ingredients, but I think it’s important to understand what’s happening in this classic science fair experiment, especially when it’s recommended for clearing pipes. When you combine the two, sure, you get a fuzzy reaction that could potentially dislodge some of the gunk in your pipes, but the reaction is so short-lasting and the generated force is so weak, it won't actually make a huge difference. Plus, once the ingredients have reacted, there’s nothing chemically special about this concoction that will eat away at the grime in your pipes. If you noticed this trick did work for you, consider that most methods suggesting this require you to take other steps, like pouring boiling hot water down the drain—boiling hot water is fantastic at softening hardened crud! I’ll stop the blasphemy now though. Individually, baking soda and vinegar are stellar ingredients. I’ve already touted the benefits of vinegar, but baking soda should still remain a cleaning go-to for you. It’s one of the best deodorizers out there, and it’s an excellent ingredient in DIY abrasive pastes.

The classic example of this mistake is detergent. I’ve observed people pouring capfuls of liquid detergent, when the reality is that, in most cases, you only need about two tablespoons! Read the bottle’s directions, but most detergents nowadays are super-concentrated and they’re formulated for high-efficiency washing machines, which can’t handle a ton of soap. All that extra detergent is also building up on your clothes over time, and can actually lead to funky odors… ick. Another example is floor cleaner. More often than not, you need to dilute the product or you’ll end up with a sticky residue. Or a film can develop over time that’ll be annoying to remove. Fun fact: Product build-up on the floor, or in any other situation really, will attract more dirt. It’ll just glom right on!

This is probably the most consistent mistake I see people make, and it’s always a little mind-boggling because it seems like common sense. It’s such a simple thing to do! But alas, the label is often overlooked, which is a shame because there’s a wealth of information in the fine print. The label will tell you what surfaces you can use the cleaner on, how to apply it, if it needs to be diluted, how long you should leave it on a surface (this is especially important for products that claim to sanitize or disinfect and it’s called contact time), etc. It will truly help you clean better, and preserve your belongings, if you follow the directions.

Hear me out. I understand why some refuse to keep it around or are afraid to use it, but bleach is an incredibly cheap ingredient that many university labs, government agencies, and hospitals recommend for proper disinfection. After surveying lots of people for stories, I’ve realized part of the issue with bleach is that many people aren’t using it properly. First of all, you truly don’t need a ton of it. Read the package instructions, but you usually don’t need more than a few teaspoons of bleach for a quart of water. The other thing is: People will keep a massive jug of the stuff forever, but it technically expires, and it’ll lose its efficacy over time. (Same thing goes with alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, actually!) So it’s pointless mixing up a batch of disinfecting solution with old bleach. (Toss it after a year or so, by the way.) Bleach gets a lot of hate but it’s hard to deny its efficacy.

The one thing I don’t find it particularly good at is laundry, actually. And so many experts I’ve interviewed for previous stories agree. It does a decent job of stain removal but there are better alternatives in my opinion, like oxygen bleach. Plus, bleach doesn’t make whites whiter. In fact, it can make them look yellow by stripping away the brightening white dyes added to natural cotton. Ultimately, a small jug of bleach can be handy to have around just in case someone’s sick, but otherwise, it doesn’t need to be an everyday item.

It’s hard for a product to do its job, and do it well, when there are crumbs and globs of who-knows-what in the way! This is less of an issue if you’re the type who does two passes, but usually people will just spray once and wipe. Cleaners and disinfectants can’t always get to the germs beneath the soils if you’re guilty of the latter offense.

There are different types of microfiber cloths. There’s the traditional kind most people are familiar with—the all-purpose cloth—and it has tiny little loops, similar to a terry cloth towel. These are fine for dusting and wiping most surfaces. But if you’re wondering why your glass is coming out kind of streaky, the all-purpose cloth could be the culprit. The type you really want is one that’s specifically created for glass, like this one from E-Cloth. Notice how smooth and flat it is? This guarantees you won’t transfer any lint. After lots of testing for some of my old stories, I can confirm this one will leave your mirrors spotless, especially when it’s paired with your favorite glass cleaner.

People have become over-reliant on vacuums, to the point where they’re skipping out on sweeping completely. But you should always sweep, even if it’s a quick pass, before vacuuming. You really don’t want your pricey machine to conk out because it inhaled a large chunk of debris. I’ve seen people use it to pick up tiny shards of glass and clumps of styrofoam, and it’s given me heart palpitations. On the other end of the spectrum, a fellow staffer reported her vacuum shorting out after she used it to suck up baking soda from her mattress. (Surprise! Baking soda is actually bad for some vacuums and can mess with the filters.) Besides all of this, it’s almost always best to attack room corners and tight spaces with a broom first and then follow up with a vacuum to get the most thorough clean. Plus, a broom gives you the opportunity to brush off the perpetually-forgotten baseboards!

It’s technically melamine foam, a sound-proofing material, and you can actually buy it in bulk for way cheaper by searching its generic name on Amazon. (If you really want to stretch your dollar, cut them into smaller pieces instead using a whole sponge for a small task.) In situations where water and a little elbow grease isn’t cutting it, I pull out a Magic Eraser, and it makes light work of scrubbing. Bathrooms, countertops, shoes, hair tools, baking sheets—I’ve used it on so many things. I always stress to people, though, that this is still technically a very, very fine grit sandpaper! I once accidentally rubbed away the paint finish on a wall, so always do a test patch.