How many times have you looked at various cleaning products and saw something on the spray bottle or bottle that says “Multi-Surface” or “All-Purpose” cleaner? You see it on lots of different products, making it out to be a one-size-fits-all wonder cleaner, right? A multi-purpose cleaner eliminates the need to have six different cleaning products under your sink and it also causes people to ignore the ingredients labels as well… because the cleaner works on multiple surfaces.
But do these multi-purpose cleaners really equally clean on multiple different surfaces like the label states?
A multi-purpose cleaner is specifically designed to be used on multiple different surfaces for different cleaning tasks in a residential or commercial building. There’s no specific or standard set of ingredients, but these cleaners typically function as a disinfectant, solvent, deodorizer, and detergent, whether it’s one of these or a combination of a few. So, different brands will utilize these functions by using a combination of the different ingredients.
This means that different brands of cleaners will have a different set of ingredients used, making certain brands better cleaning solutions for certain surfaces than others. If you use one particular brand of multi-purpose cleaner for a task and you feel it’s ineffective, then you simply try another brand.
But typically, with most multi-purpose cleaners, they’re designed to clean glass, laminate, and steel thoroughly and effectively, but there are other surfaces these cleaners are also effective on as well. Out of the many household cleaners needed in every home, let’s take a look at how multi-purpose cleaners clean the following common surfaces.
Multi-Purpose Cleaners on Different Surfaces “At-a-Glance”
Glass and Mirror
Multi-purpose cleaners used on glass are designed to remove dirt and clean and buff the glass. Simple enough, you would just spray the cleaning solution onto your glass surface and wipe it clean with a dry paper towel or cloth. Just make sure you rub your glass or mirror surface thoroughly to prevent any smudging, smears, or streaks.
This is, of course, for household and commercial cleaning purposes. Big manufacturing companies tend to used plasma cleaning on glass surfaces… Plasma cleaning is on a much larger scale than multi-purpose cleaners but it is indeed one of the most industrious ways to effectively clean glass. This method would be more so used in cleaning car windshields and door windows during production.
Wood
Wood is a surface that is highly not recommended for the use of multi-purpose cleaners. This would include wood floors, tables, and other pieces of furniture that are composed of wood. Reader’s Digest states that some of the worst cleaning solutions to use on wood include:
- Soap and water
- Glass cleaner
- Ammonia
- Oil
- Bleach
If you’re needing to clean your wood, multi-purpose cleaners are not it. Look for cleaners specifically designed for wood… It looks like that’s one strike against multi-purpose cleaners.
Laminate and Steel
Laminate and steel are surfaces ideal for multi-purpose cleaners, and since these types of surfaces are typically found in bathrooms and kitchens, they function as a disinfectant. This makes it ideal to wipe down your kitchen countertops and inside your refrigerator as well as your bathroom countertops and even in your shower and toilets as well, leaving them clean and bacteria and germ-free.
Flooring
Aside from wood flooring, tiles and linoleum flooring are great surfaces to use multi-purpose cleaners on. Just read the instructions on the bottle, but typically, when using a multi-purpose cleaner for flooring, you pour a little of the cleaner into a bucket and dilute it with warm water. Once you have a nice mixture, you can clean your floors and remove all the dirt and grime you track in your home on a daily basis.
Conclusion
With any cleaning product you’re shopping for, always read the label for ingredients to protect yourself from harmful chemicals, but especially make sure to check which surfaces certain cleaners are not recommended for… This will help you to determine which cleaner is best for the type of surface you’re trying to clean. Also, wear gloves when cleaning for added protection.