Squeaky Clean

I made some REALLY nice carbonara for dinner tonight, but I'm not blogging that :-) Maybe some other time.

I'm reading an article in The Age about being green, and one of the topics discussed is cleaning, ie. cleaning your home. It hits quite a few home truths.

Now, as someone who once cleaned houses for a living, I'm going to let you in on a little something - I only ever used one product. That's right: one. Not something for the kitchen, something for the bathroom, something for the toilet, something for this, something else for that. Just one product. Now I'll admit, it wasn't vinegar or bi-carb soda with a bit of water. Maybe I should have tried that.... anyway, are you ready for this? Are you sure?

Not that I'm claiming it's "green", but it was Black and Gold brand dishwashing concentrate. That's right. That's it. A little squirt in a bucket of warm/hot water does wonders for your floors. Likewise, a tiny squirt into a 4L ice-cream container and a rag cleans up benches and things like a charm. Have an enamel bathtub or shower floor that has those pesky black marks on them? Squirt some around, smear it with a cloth, come back an hour later, wipe it all away and WOW, look at that shine! Soap scum on the shower screen? Same treatment. Throw some around your toilet bowl, swoosh it around with the brush, leave it until the next time you use the loo, no problem! Sure, if you use too much it can get a bit sudsy - this IS after all dishwashing detergent, it's DESIGNED to suds up. But I tell you, it's far and away the best cleaning product I've ever used. And at such a tiny price, is it any wonder I look at the other products on the shelf with disdain?

Actually, there is one other thing - once a month, if you throw some disinfectant into the tank in your toilet, you'll save yourself some troubles too!

I will admit, if you love your car as much as I do I wouldn't recommend using it to wash it... squeaky clean isn't quite how I want my car's paint job... so I use Maquires Soft Wash Gel for that.... hm, wonder how it'd go in the home... yeah, probably not good :-)

I wonder though, does anyone have a "does-it-all" cleaning product they want to share with us? Or a "does-nearly-all" one?