Cleaning agents

What you clean with, what each one actually does, and which surfaces it damages. Strength and safety are the same property seen from opposite sides.

Listed alphabetically.

• Acetic acid (vinegar)

  The acid in vinegar. Genuinely effective on limescale and mineral films, and routinely recommended for surfaces it should never touch.

  Carries warnings · Acidic

• Acetone

  The solvent in nail polish remover. The same fact sheet that lists it as a solvent for plastics also warns, in three words, that it attacks them.

  Carries warnings

• Ammonia

  An alkaline cleaner found in some glass and general-purpose products. What matters most about it is what it does when mixed with bleach.

  Carries warnings · Alkaline

• Amphoteric surfactant

  Changes its charge with the pH of the water around it. Used where mildness matters more than power.

• Amylase

  The enzyme for starch — the invisible half of a food stain, and the part that makes a plate feel faintly tacky after washing.

• Anionic surfactant

  The workhorse of most laundry and dishwashing products, and the reason hard water used to ruin a wash.

• Bicycle degreaser

  A solvent aimed at a drivetrain, and what matters most about it is where it must not go: bearings, and the lubrication it strips by design.

  Varies by product

• Borax

  A mildly alkaline borate salt with a long history in laundry and a regulatory position that differs by country. Rated an oxidiser and a health hazard by the sheet that covers it.

  Mildly alkaline

• Calcium hypochlorite

  Solid chlorine bleach, sold as granules for pools, patios and water treatment. Being solid rather than dilute changes what it does, and both changes are dangerous.

  Carries warnings · Alkaline

• Carbolic acid

  Where domestic disinfection began. A state health department rates it 4 for health — the top of its scale — and lists disinfectant among its uses in the same paragraph.

  Mildly acidic

• Carpet and fabric spot remover

  The product class a professional body warns about by name — and it gives a test you can run in a glass before you use one.

• Cationic surfactant

  Positively charged, so it sticks to fabric and to most surfaces rather than rinsing away. That is the point of it, and the problem with it.

• Cellulase

  The enzyme that does not attack the stain at all. It shaves the cotton, which is why 'colour care' products contain it.

• Ceramic hob cleaner

  A very fine abrasive cream with a polymer that leaves a film. Both halves matter, and the film is what makes the next spill easier to remove.

  Varies by product

• Chlorine dioxide

  A gas, not a bleach solution — and the distinction matters, because its occupational exposure limit is an order of magnitude below that of most cleaning substances.

• Citric acid

  A mild solid acid, widely used for descaling. Effective on limescale, and destructive to carbonate stone for exactly the same reason.

  Carries warnings · Acidic

• Corrosion inhibitor

  In a dishwasher detergent it is what stops the machine and the cutlery being attacked by the detergent.

• Cresol disinfectant

  What replaced carbolic in the household, and the reason a particular smell still means clean. Detectable at 0.0006 ppm — far below the level at which it is dangerous.

  Mildly acidic

• Defoamer

  Foam looks like cleaning and often prevents it. In a machine the suppressor is what lets the water do mechanical work.

• Denatured alcohol

  Ethanol made undrinkable, and the solvent half of the one damp-wipe solution conservation guidance specifies for glass.

  Approximately neutral

• Descaler

  A product category rather than a chemical: an acid chosen to dissolve carbonate scale. Which acid decides which surfaces the bottle will ruin.

  Acidic

• Detergent

  A surfactant-based cleaner. The general-purpose answer for greasy and particulate soil, and the correct first choice far more often than any specialist product.

  Carries warnings · Varies by product

• Dishwasher detergent

  A strongly alkaline, low-foaming formulation with a bleaching system. Nothing about it is interchangeable with washing-up liquid, in either direction.

  Carries warnings · Strongly alkaline

• Dishwasher salt

  Coarse sodium chloride that never touches the dishes. It regenerates an ion-exchange resin inside the machine, which is a completely different job from cleaning.

  Approximately neutral

• Drain cleaner

  Two chemically opposite product families under one name, plus a third that is neither. Which one is in the bottle decides everything, including what happens if it meets the other.

  Varies by product

• EDTA

  The chelating agent named on the label by its own initials, because its persistence in the environment made it worth naming.

• Enzymatic cleaner

  Not a stronger detergent — a set of catalysts that each cut one kind of soil. Which is why whether it works on your stain has no general answer.

• Enzymatic drain treatment

  One of the two chemically opposite families the poisons service divides the drain aisle into — and the only one that works by growing something rather than destroying it.

  Approximately neutral

• Fabric conditioner

  A cationic coating deposited on the fibre at the end of the wash. It is not a cleaner, and the coating is why several fabrics say never to use it.

  Carries warnings · Mildly acidic

• Fabric protector

  It does not repel spills for the life of the sofa and it does not seal the weave. What it actually buys is time and better vacuuming.

• Floor cleaner

  A product category whose right answer is decided by the finish rather than by the floor. The wood trade says so in one sentence and it generalises.

  Varies by product

• Floor finish

  A sacrificial coating that is walked on so the floor is not. Most of what looks like a well-cleaned commercial floor is a well-maintained finish.

• Fragrance

  The part of a product that changes nothing about how it works, and the part most likely to be the reason somebody reacts to it.

• Furniture polish

  The majority contain silicone, and a federal conservation leaflet says silicone residue survives stripping the finish down to bare wood.

  Carries warnings

• Glass cleaner

  A product category built on fast evaporation rather than cleaning power — and the two ingredients that make it work are the two the mirror trade excludes.

  Carries warnings · Varies by product

• Hand cleanser

  Built to remove what a solvent would remove, without removing the skin barrier along with it. That constraint is the entire product.

  Approximately neutral

• Hydrochloric acid

  The strong mineral acid in brick acid and the harshest toilet cleaners. It attacks copper, brass and zinc, and meeting an oxidiser it gives off chlorine gas.

  Carries warnings · Strongly acidic

• Hydrogen peroxide

  An oxidising bleach that breaks down into water and oxygen. Genuinely milder than chlorine bleach, and not therefore safe to combine with anything.

  Carries warnings · Mildly acidic

• Hydrotrope

  The ingredient that stops a concentrated liquid separating in the bottle. It cleans nothing and without it there is no product.

• Isopropyl alcohol

  A solvent that dissolves oils and residues and evaporates without a trace. Useful on electronics and glass; flammable, and damaging to some plastics and finishes.

  Carries warnings

• Laundry detergent

  A built, multi-component formulation — not simply soap for clothes. The biological and non-biological split is about enzymes, and it is the one that changes what you can wash.

  Alkaline

• Leather conditioner

  A category the leather trade fences unusually tightly, prohibiting several of the products most associated with it by name — saddle soap and mink oil among them.

  Approximately neutral

• Linear alkylbenzene sulphonate

  The workhorse anionic surfactant behind most washing-up liquids and laundry powders — the specific molecule the word 'detergent' usually stands in for.

  Varies by product

• Lipase

  The enzyme for fats and oils, and the one whose effect is often only visible after the second wash.

• Metal polish

  A very fine abrasive with a mild chemical assist. Every use removes metal, which is why polishing a plated or antique item is a one-way decision.

  Carries warnings · Varies by product

• Microcrystalline wax

  The protective coat conservation applies after cleaning metal and wood — and the one whose commonest failure is putting too much of it on.

  Approximately neutral

• Mild cream cleanser

  A liquid carrying a fine soft abrasive. The trade answer for water marks and light staining on stainless steel — and not the same thing as scouring powder.

  Carries warnings · Varies by product

• Mineral oil

  The inert oil used to condition wooden boards and worktops. It is aftercare rather than cleaning, and it is not the same as a drying oil.

• Mould remover

  Usually a bleach in a thickened spray. It removes the stain reliably and does nothing at all about the reason the mould is there.

  Strongly alkaline

• Neutral cleaner

  A near-neutral surfactant cleaner. The recommended answer for natural stone of every kind, and the least interesting product in the cupboard for good reasons.

  Approximately neutral

• Non-ionic detergent

  The detergent conservation work actually names, chosen for two properties: low toxicity, and the fact that it rinses off.

  Approximately neutral

• Non-ionic surfactant

  Carries no charge, so hard water does not touch it. Usually blended with an anionic rather than used alone.

• Optical brightener

  Does not clean anything. It makes fabric emit blue light so the eye reads it as whiter, and it must be declared however little is used.

• Oven cleaner

  A product category built on strong alkali. It works by turning baked-on fat into soap, and it damages aluminium, paint and self-cleaning linings doing it.

  Carries warnings · Strongly alkaline

• Oxalic acid

  The acid in most rust removers and wood bleaches. It works by holding iron in solution rather than by dissolving a deposit, and it corrodes the steel the rust was sitting on.

  Carries warnings · Strongly acidic

• Perchloroethylene

  The solvent that made dry cleaning an industry, named as such in the first line of its own hazard sheet — and classed as a carcinogen in the same banner.

  Carries warnings

• Phosphonate

  Present in very small amounts and doing two quiet jobs: holding back scale, and stopping trace metals from destroying the bleach.

• Phosphoric acid

  A moderately strong acid used in descalers and rust treatments. The regulator's storage instruction names bleach among the things it must never meet.

  Carries warnings · Strongly acidic

• Polycarboxylate

  The co-builder that keeps loosened soil in the water instead of letting it settle back onto the wash.

• Potassium hydroxide

  The other caustic alkali, and the one a regulator puts a number to: liquid drain cleaners contain a quarter to a third of it by weight.

  Carries warnings · Strongly alkaline

• Preservative

  Protects the product rather than the surface. A water-based cleaner is a nutrient broth if nothing stops things growing in it.

• Protease

  The enzyme for protein stains, and the reason a hot pre-wash makes blood and egg permanently worse.

• Quaternary ammonium compounds

  A class of cleaning-product active that a regulator lists among the ammonia compounds which release chlorine gas on contact with bleach. That reaction is the fact that matters.

  Carries warnings

• Quicklime

  Pre-industrial sanitation in a bag. The regulator's long-term exposure paragraph reads as a description of the hands of everybody who used it.

  Strongly alkaline

• Rinse aid

  Not a cleaner at all. It lowers the surface tension of the final rinse so water sheets off instead of beading, which is why it prevents spotting.

  Mildly acidic

• Scouring powder

  An abrasive suspended in a carrier, sometimes with bleach added. What decides whether it is safe is the hardness of the mineral against the hardness of the surface.

  Carries warnings · Varies by product

• Soap

  The original surfactant, and chemically not the same thing as detergent. In hard water it precipitates, which is where the film on a shower screen comes from.

  Alkaline

• Sodium bicarbonate

  A mild alkali that is also a fine, soft abrasive. Its real usefulness is mechanical, and it is far weaker chemically than its reputation suggests.

  Mildly alkaline

• Sodium carbonate

  A considerably stronger alkali than bicarbonate. Effective on grease and as a laundry builder, and damaging to aluminium, wool and painted surfaces.

  Carries warnings · Alkaline

• Sodium chlorite

  A solid oxidiser used to bleach textiles and treat water, and one of the few substances that can ignite ordinary household material on contact.

  Carries warnings · Alkaline

• Sodium dichloroisocyanurate

  The chlorine donor in sanitising and sterilising tablets. A state health department records it as reacting explosively with bleach in the presence of water.

  Carries warnings · Mildly acidic

• Sodium hydroxide

  The strongest alkali in domestic use and the active ingredient in oven and drain cleaners. Genuinely effective, and the substance here that most reliably injures people.

  Carries warnings · Strongly alkaline

• Sodium hypochlorite (chlorine bleach)

  A powerful oxidising bleach and disinfectant. It is also the substance behind the most common serious household chemical accidents, and must never be mixed with anything.

  Carries warnings · Strongly alkaline

• Sodium percarbonate (oxygen bleach)

  An oxidising bleach that releases hydrogen peroxide in water. Gentler than chlorine bleach on fabrics and dyes, and it does not produce chlorine gas.

  Carries warnings · Alkaline

• Stainless steel cleaner

  Mostly a light oil in a solvent carrier. It works by filling the finish and leaving a film — which is a cosmetic result, not a cleaning one.

  Carries warnings · Varies by product

• Sugar soap

  Contains no sugar and, in most modern products, no soap. An alkaline pre-paint cleaner whose name is a description of what it looked like, not what it is.

  Carries warnings · Strongly alkaline

• Sulphuric acid

  The acid in the acidic class of drain openers, and the one household substance where the standing advice to flush a spill with water is wrong.

  Carries warnings · Strongly acidic

• Trisodium phosphate

  A heavy-duty alkaline cleaner and water softener, used before painting. It is a builder as much as a cleaner, and it corrodes aluminium and brass.

  Carries warnings · Strongly alkaline

• Upholstery cleaner

  The category where the manufacturer decided before you bought it. The cleaning code on the label outranks anything the bottle claims.

  Varies by product

• Water

  The solvent almost all cleaning happens in, and on its own the right answer more often than it is given credit for.

  Carries warnings · Approximately neutral

• White spirit

  The petroleum solvent the leather and carpet trades name for oil marks. One substance under three names, and it attacks plastic, rubber and coatings.

  Carries warnings

• Wood ash

  The residue from a wood fire: a fine abrasive that is also mildly alkaline. The active ingredient in a long-standing stove-glass technique.

  Mildly alkaline

• Wool detergent

  A mild, near-neutral detergent without enzymes or bleach. What the wool industry body recommends, and what it recommends against is the more useful half.

  Approximately neutral

• Zeolite

  The phosphate replacement. A crystalline mineral that traps hardness ions in its own structure rather than dissolving them away.

A product category such as oven cleaner, descaler or drain cleaner names a shelf rather than a compound. Each is usually built on one of a few chemistries, but a particular bottle may be built on another, and the label governs.