Exceedingly Mundane

tidbits of random nothingness

Subscribe to Exceedingly Mundane
Mar
25
Posted by Stace

Cleaning, Part 1 – The Kitchen

I always have such good intentions about blogging. Take this blog post, for instance. I took this picture over a month ago, and stored it away to write a post about:

Now, here it is several weeks later, and I no longer have any of the dish soap or hand soap. I was going to blog about how I had bought my first Mrs. Meyer’s products last fall and winter. I love this pine scent that came out around the holidays. I was going to blab about how my local Target had this one seasonal scent, but I can no longer find these products at my store. And of course, they’re not at Walmart (where I normally shop, I know, I know!). I don’t shop at drugstore type stores (CVS, Walgreens, etc), so I don’t know if they carry them. I was pleasantly surprised to find some unscented Mrs. Meyer’s products at my local Marshalls / TJ Maxx stores. That’s where I got the countertop spray in the middle, which I do still have 🙂

I had the best intentions about doing a nice, little post about cleaning products, and what people use to clean their kitchen with. Are you a germophobe and very concerned about germs, and only use anti-bacterial products? Do you hand wash dishes, and if so, what brand or type of dish soap do you use? Are you adamant about your floors and countertops, and what do you use on them? Are you a sucker for a certain kind of dishwasher product – tabs, gel, powder, etc?

I must admit, I’m brand dependent, but only to the extent of what I can find in bulk at our local Sam’s Club, combined with what I like. I normally use Palmolive anti-bacterial dish soap. It’s an orange colored liquid that I buy in a huge container at Sams, then I fill up a glass olive oil with spout type container at home (did that make ANY sense?!) to use for washing pots and pans in the sink. I use Cascade tabs in my dishwasher. I’ve tried powder, gel and tabs, and I do like the ease and convenience of the tabs. Sam’s sells both Electrosol brand and Cascade brand, but I couldn’t tell a huge difference between them. The Cascade are a bit cheaper, so that’s what we use. I keep hand soap on my sink, but once I had used up all of my Mrs Meyers, I admit I went back to using the Equate brand from Walmart, an antibacterial one. I mop my floors with Armstrong floor cleaner. With a dog that is only allowed on the tile in the kitchen, my floors have to be cleaned pretty often 🙂

So, there, it’s not timely or well-stated, but I wanted to ramble on about cleaning products in the kitchen. I’m always interested in what other people use, and what they like and dislike. It’s usually a good way to find something new to try, that I might like better 🙂 I am a homebody and I work hard to keep our home a happy, healthy, clean, comfortable place. These topics are so mundane to most, but always so intriguing to me!

Leave me a comment and let me know what you use at your house, or if you really could care less about this type of stuff 🙂 Maybe you’re not the only cleaning up the kitchen, or maybe it just doesn’t matter. But if it does, and you’ve found products that you either like or dislike for whatever reason, let me know!

Oh, and have a great day!

  1. Lauren@Baseballsandbows Said,

    I read this on a good day. I have actually been cleaning (I really, really, really needed to). I am pretty brand specific. If I like it, I stick with it. I admit I am not very green with my cleaning products. I don’t like change very much. We do use the tabs and love them (I think ours are Cascade). I use some Swiffer products to dust, and I can’t live without Tilex Soap Scum cleaner for the tubs and showers. I really like Pledge Multi-Surface because it doesn’t streak and I can use it on glass and wood. Magic Erasers are very handy for me as well. Happy Cleaning!

  2. Lynne Said,

    I have to clean the kitchen tomorrow morning. I use Simple Green for the floors and counters. For the dishwasher I think I have Cascade tabs. I’m not sure because I take them out of the box or container and put them in a plastic container under the sink. I hand wash pots and pans and some dishes and use Dawn – I buy a big jug and use an olive oil dispenser too! The hardest thing for me to keep clean in the kitchen is my black stove. I’ve found if I clean it first with Dawn then spray it with Windex it looks clean and shiny.

    You know, Dom is out for the evening so I just might tackle the kitchen tonight!

  3. Laura Said,

    I’ve been branching out a bit and tried some of that Clorox Greenworks all-purpose cleaning spray. I like the scent and I like that I can use it anywhere without having to worry about rinsing or wiping it clean. SoftScrub is my number one bathroom & kitchen cleaning product (I am phasing out the version with bleach, though) and I scrub the sink with comet. I use Costco’s Kirkland brand dish detergent for the washer, and for regular dish soap right now I’m using Target’s up & up brand and Dawn foaming soap for our hands. On the toilets I use Clorox clean-up spray. Pledge for dusting. And I’ve said it before, but I’m a Swiffer girl. I can’t imagine trying to fuss with a mop & mixing cleaner at 7:00p on a weeknight. Did I cover everything? Lol! 😉

    I don’t mind cleaning – I just wish I had more time for it. It already takes up too much of my free time. I hate that I can’t take Andrew to the park on a nice spring Sunday because I have to clean all the bathrooms.

  4. Dianne Said,

    I’ve been using Windex Vinegar Multisurface cleaning solution for the stove, countertops and my laminate floors. But once this bottle is empty, I’m going to try just using white vinegar, diluted with water and a touch of lemon scented dish soap to cut the smell. I’m really starting to like vinegar for lots of cleaning jobs. And it’s cheap – about $2 a gallon at Aldi’s. we’ll see how far we get with it – at least in the kitchen.

    Fun post. I have such a love-hate relationship with cleaning!

  5. Gail Said,

    I was actually going to email you to ask about your mop! I cleaned yesterday, most of the day so yay it’s done but boo, it’ll need it again soon……..I want a self cleaning house! Is there such a thing. 🙂
    Well I still have some of the Mrs. Meyer pine soap to wash my dishes with and love it…..if I’m buying from walmart it’s always Ivory for me, I also like the scented dish soaps from Williams Sonoma if I’m going to splurge but that’s like once every 2 yrs. I use liquid dish soap in the dishwasher and lately I think it’s some kind of Palmolive green/eco one. I use clorox clean up for the toilets. I like endust for dusting but as we’ve talked about, our stores don’t have it. And I NEED something to clean the showers with, I think we’ve talked about them and that they are stained and I can’t get some spots out no matter what I do!

  6. annie Said,

    I use mr. clean for mopping. The blue one… it just smells so clean to me.
    I use a lot of bleach and clorox clean up, mostly because I love to smell bleach (weird huh?)
    I use clorox clean up wipes all the time. So convenient.
    I put ammonia in the washer to help with fresher laundry.

  7. mamichelle Said,

    I’ve never seen Mrs. Meyer’s. I use Electrosol for my dishwasher. I hand wash plastics and pans and use Dawn Direct foam (love that!!). For my granite counters, a fellow SBAer recommended Method Daily Granite. It’s great!

    I am sort of germophobic. I use Lysol disinfecting spray for food surfaces, Lysol disinfecting wipes, etc.

  8. cam Said,

    I love talking cleaners. 🙂
    Germaphobe here, but I never use antibacterial anything- dangerous stuff.
    I use equate hand soap, the plain kind with aloe and no antibacterial agents.
    For handwashing dishes and cleaning counters, I just use hot water with Ajax (cheap but very, very good stuff, very effective). When I clean the counters after something particularly germy has been on them, I use a bleach spray that I make up myself. I have a plain spray bottle to which I add 1 part bleach to 10 parts water. This is a good, safe disinfectant, and you can’t get any cheaper than that. I spray it into the sink after washing, also…I like to keep everything sanitized as far as the kitchen sink & counters go.
    For the dishwasher I use cascade powder. I was using equate brand powder, but they stopped putting phosphorus in it so I had to bump up the cost and get cascade. I don’t like tabs b/c they’re overkill- it only takes a tiny bit of detergent to clean well, and with a tab I can’t reduce the amount. 😀
    For general cleaning up of greasy messes, I use Method all-purpose spray cleaner, in cucumber scent. I used to use 409 until I became aware of how dangerous these chemical cleaners are. I tried Method spray, and was very skeptical of how it would work, but it works great! I love it and have now used it for several years. No chemicals! And it smells good.
    For floors Philip uses a generic brand of yellow floor cleaner…can’t think of what it’s called. But he mops the floors and takes care of that for me each week.
    I think that’s it! Enjoyed reading everyone’s habits.

Add A Comment