Home cleaning hacks

Whether you’re interested in bathroom cleaning hacks, kitchen cleaning hacks or laundry hacks, you’ll find it much easier to clean your home once you’ve learned a few easy tricks. These house cleaning hacks are designed to save your time and effort while still giving you great results.

Make the most of multi-purpose cleaning products like Cif. You might even find some unconventional cleaning life hacks for them, like cleaning white trainers!

Kitchen Cleaning Hacks:

• Use ketchup to clean metal Tarnished brass or stained copper pots? No problem. Just rub a little ketchup onto the surface with a cloth and buff gently. Then rinse clean.

• Prevent sticky dust with oil Remove nasty residue from cupboards and counters by wiping them with a little cooking oil and then rinsing with normal soapy water.

• Clean microwaves with hot lemon One of our favourite kitchen cleaning hack- squeeze the juice of one lemon into a bowl of water and heat the mixture, with the two lemon halves, in the microwave for 3 minutes. Remove the dish carefully and watch dirt glide off when you wipe it.

• Scrub chopping boards with salt and lemon juice Another popular kitchen cleaning hack using lemon- scrub those chopping boards with half a lemon and some salt to get into all those grooves with ease.

• Polish metal sinks with regular flour Want to get that stainless steel sink gleaming? Wash it with regular dish soap and water and dry thoroughly. Then sprinkle a thick dusting of flour and buff with a paper towel or cotton cloth for unbeatable shine.

Bathroom Cleaning Hacks:

• Buff mirrored surfaces with black tea Tired of mirrors and glass surfaces looking dull or covered in watermarks? Brew some strong, cold, black tea and buff it across the surfaces with newspaper.

• Help taps shine with a little oil Baby oil works best here, but you can use other mild oils too. Just apply a tiny amount of it with a clean cloth and buff rigorously to shine your taps.

• Bleach tile grout white again Get rid of black mould and mildew from tile grout with a bleach gel like Domex. Scrub it in with an old toothbrush, leave for a few minutes, and rinse.

• Tackle stubborn toilet stains with a pumice stone This is one of the best bathroom cleaning hacks we’ve found. Simply scrub stubborn toilet bowl stones with a pumice stone to get rid of them. The best bit? The stone naturally crumbles and can be flushed away safely.

• Make your own surface cleaner Mix bleach with water and put it in an empty and thoroughly rinsed out spray bottle. This is an easy house cleaning hack which you can use outside of the bathroom too.

Bleach can produce toxic gasses when mixed with other chemicals so make sure you rinse your spray bottle thoroughly and only mix bleach with water.

Laundry Cleaning Hacks:

• Pre-treat lipstick stains with bread Remove the crust from a slice of white bread and roll the bread into a ball. Dab at the stain to lift it from the garment before washing as normal with detergent.

• Tackle musty smells with white vinegar During periods of high humidity, it’s not uncommon for our clothes to smell musty. A great cleaning hack is to use white vinegar in your wash to banish bad odour.

• Unshrink clothes with baby shampoo Clothes shrunk in the wash? Soak them with baby shampoo and water to relax the fibres and then slowly stretch the fabric back into shape.

• Replace dryer sheets with foil Scrunch a little aluminium foil into a ball and place in your dryer to help reduce static and increase the softness of your clothes.

• Use liquid detergent as a pre-treatment Clothes too stained to just pop in the wash? Dab the affected areas with a little liquid detergent such as Surf excel before washing as normal.

With these house cleaning hacks, getting your home clean and tidy will never feel like a task.

Key Steps:

• Use multipurpose products to save time

• Give household ingredients a try when you have stubborn stains

• Try home cleaning hacks that use familiar products in a different way – like bleaching tile grout with Domex or cleaning white trainers with Cif