spring cleaning.
solutions and dilutions for life with cotton upholstery, wooden floors, and white rugs, among other things.
It’s very nearly spring and I’ve been sitting on these different tales of cleaning triumph for too long to keep them to myself any longer. The thing about cleaning is that it’s mostly drudgery and boring. Too often, responsibility for cleaning is gendered in a way that does a disservice to women (who else?). Each of us has something more important to do than make sure our whites come out sparkling and our home smells like roses. But cleaning is also an act of maintenance and care with some real consequences beyond our personal comfort. Viewed in this light, cleaning can help disrupt a cycle of disposability and waste, keeping our stuff in good working order and out of landfills. Plus, a good cleaning triumph is gratifying and satisfying and complete, which are all nice things to experience when most everything else feels out of control, unpredictable, and ever-evolving.
I’ve been known to do some lite blasting of corporate cleaning product companies for creating and then exploiting our cultural obsession for clean by selling a different product for every possible cleaning need under the sun. I stand by the fact that white vinegar and baking soda can do an incredible amount of good, very cheaply, and with limited negative impacts. I think these are two of the most useful cleaning products anyone could use, but in the past few years, when stumped by particularly pesky cleaning and maintenance conundrums, I’ve broadened my personal cache of cleaning supplies to include a few other basics. These are things that mostly fly under the radar of aggressive marketing and markups and can be found very cheaply in nearly every bodega or corner store.
My kink is removing labels and decanting bottles into other bottles, but don’t let the twee-ness of these beautiful advertisement-free bottles fool you. They contain workhorses. In case you need something beyond vinegar and baking soda, consider these: