Chemistry Lesson

When it comes to cleaning, as I've said a time or two before, it's not your cleaners so much as what you do with them.

That being the case, it doesn't really matter what particular chemicals a cleaner uses. Your kitchen counter will be clean whether I use soap, or vinegar, or turn the Scrubbing Bubbles loose on it. I can get the soap scum off your bathtub with baking soda, or borax, or Comet with bleach.

There are three main ways a cleaner goes about choosing a particular chemical for a particular job: An average homemaker is going to pick something by smell (Have you seen how many "flavors" cleaning chemicals come in nowadays?) and by the recommended use stated on the label. Advanced cleaners will factor in experience, and pick the chemicals that are easiest to work with and do the best job. A really serious cleaner is going to be mindful of what it is she's cleaning, and choose chemicals that won't hurt the surfaces she wants to clean. Those Scrubbing Bubbles could eat the finish of your counter. Comet with bleach could fade the colored grout around your tub. That's the reason most professional cleaners don't use bleach these days. It's too easy to ruin a client's things with bleach.

Now ready-made cleaning products will tell you what materials they're safe to use on. But if you're avoiding color and smell and ignoring marketing claims, you don't have a whole lot to go on.

Ph 101

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The guiding principle for figuring out what cleaner is best for what is the ph scale -- that is, the range from acid to alkaline. Here is a carpet-cleaning fact sheet that explains the details and hazards of cleaners at each end of the spectrum.

You've heard the term "ph balanced?" Shampoo and floor cleaner marketers love this one. Sounds like a special formulation that brings harmony and balance to your follicles. "Balance" has a misleading connotation. What the commercials are really saying is that their particular product is neutral, meaning it is neither acid nor alkaline, so its ph number falls in the middle of the 1-14 acidity scale.

Generally, in marketer-speak and in practice, a neutral ph of about 7 means a substance is mild and not likely to cause damage to most surfaces.

So why not just find one neutral product and go at it?

Well, plain water's neutral, and it's a great solvent, but who's going to pay me to come over and wipe everything with water?

Water can be pretty powerful all by itself (Ever hear the term "erosion"?), but when you're using a small amount in a short timespan for cleaning purposes, it could use a little boost.  When you augment your cleaning water, you want to keep it neutral, or make it more acid or more alkaline, depending on what kind of dirt you want to pick up. Acid cleaners are best for alkaline dirt like, well, dirt, as well as soap scum and nongreasy kitchen dirt. Alkaline cleaners are best for acidic grease and protein dirt. At its most, um, basic, opposites attract, and, when you're cleaning, you want to attract dirt.


THE NEUTRALS

Soap:  If you have to pick one cleaner, good old fashioned soap can do the trick. Generally plain soap's neutral or a mildly alkaline. Basic soap is an oil-based concoction made up of nifty molecules that attract water to dissolve dirt on one end and repel water to attract dirt on the other end.  Here's an academic explainer from Cal State that shows exactly what's going on and includes the names of the chemicals that are used as commercial soaps and detergents.

Baking soda: Some health nuts and cleaners like to tout baking soda's alkaline properties. But, as you can see on the chart above, it's a very mild alkaline. Coupled with it's mild abrasive quality, baking soda's near-neutral ph makes it a great all-purpose cleanser.

ACIDS

Vinegar: Vinegar, with a ph of 3, is a medium-strength acid, and it's pretty much the only one you need for cleaning house.Use acid to clean up soil and plant-based food dirt in the kitchen. It's also good for dissolving mineral deposits and rust on plumbing fixtures and surfaces. Vinegar's strong enough to etch grout, so it's not a good cleaner for tile, though a little vinegar water never hurt a wood, laminate or vinyl floor.

Lemon juice: If you shun commercial cleaning products, lemon juice is the strongest acid you're likely to have in your home. A lemon's supposed to be great for soap-scummy bathroom fixtures (do not use on silver) and can be used with oil to polish furniture. The major drawback of lemon juice is that it's perishable, so you won't find too many cleaners running around with lemons on their carts.


ALKALINES


Borax: This is another mild alkaline cleaner (ph of 8) that's especially good for deodorizing and getting at soap scum. Borax is supposed to be a pretty good disinfectant, but it must not be good enough to make that claim, because at least the 20 Mule Team brand shuns any suggestion that it kills germs. I'll have to dig into that some more before deciding it's good for that use.

Washing Soda: Washing soda's a pretty old-time laundry staple. Its ph is about 11, so it's pretty caustic and can be irritating if you get it on your skin. It's a good degreaser though, and the package says it's good for oily stains on clothes, though adding a little to the wash doesn't do much for old greasy stains. This stuff can stain aluminum and damage vinyl floors.

So that's how simple household chemicals work. Fancy commercial cleaning products work on the same principle, only manufacturers use iffy compounds and add preservatives, dyes and perfumes to make them last forever and give them their signature colors and smells. Want to read more about the nasties in ready-made cleaning products, look under the "No-Stink Cleaning" tab at www.JustCleanTuscaloosa.com.