The 12 Cleaning Hacks Our Editors Swear By

03.05.2024 - 14:12 / thespruce.com

The internet is full of cleaning «hacks» that promise to change your life, but few of them actually end up being useful enough to incorporate into your cleaning routine. At The Spruce, it's our job to find those unicorns—those game-changers that leave your home sparkling clean using surprising methods.

These are the 12 cleaning hacks our editors actually swear by.

I'm not sure if this is totally a hack—moreso a repurposing, but I first learned this method as a summer lifeguard. We had members complain that the grout lines in our tiled bathroom were too gross and brown-black, so we spent practically a whole day trying different cleaning products to find what would make the grout white again.

Lo and behold it was Clorox Toilet Bowl Cleaner. I now use it in my own bathroom on the tile floors and shower. You let it sit for a few minutes and go to town with a scrubber of some sort. Additional hack: I use a toothbrush (purely dedicated to cleaning) to really get in the tiny shower grout lines. On the floor I use a power drill and a scrubbing brush attachment (truly a game changer) to speed up the process. — Emma Phelps, Associate Commerce Editor

I started doing this a year ago but I love adding a few drops of my favorite essential oil (lavender all the way) to my laundry when I'm loading it into the dryer. It always leaves my dried laundry smelling fresh, which lasts for days. -Jane Kim, Associate Editor

This is possibly the silliest/laziest hack but I almost always clean my jewelry with toothpaste and a soft bristled toothbrush before polishing it. Might not be recommended by most but this hack has never let me down and I always end up with really sparkly jewelry every time. I mostly do this with sterling silver jewelry