I like the Method brand of spray cleaners. They come in pretty colours and they smell good, especially the grapefruit version.

The French Lavender might be a touch strong.

They also work, something many product manufacturers don’t seem to worry about. You can even use it on wood, perfect for the lazy cleaner who hates walking back to the kitchen to grab a different spray.

But the wrong pig met up with the wrong bat and now we’re in a pandemic with interruptions to supply chains and vanishing favourites. [1] No Beefaroni for the foreseeable future was a blow. If I was a better person, I’d make my own cleaning products and be greener. I’d wash my clothes with a rock. I’m not that good a person.

The few homemade cleaners and concoctions I do have don’t handle the serious stuff that well. I prefer to let the scientists do the heavy lifting. They’re better at it.

Take grease.

No, really. Take it. I’m in a never-ending battle with the stuff. I don’t even cook that much. I think it’s in the air. It’s like dust. It lives to land on surfaces and make my life miserable. The perpetual fingerprints on the microwave front are giving me an eye-twitch.

Black appliances make things worse. I loved them when I first moved in. They were shiny and exotic: they made me feel stylishly on-trend. In day-to-day life, however, they’re a curse and a bane: they show every mote and smudge and they look awful a great deal of the time. I’d never buy them again and vehemently discourage others from choosing the same although I’m grateful to the universe for what I do have since anything at all makes me luckier than most. [2]

With Method off the table due to supply-chain hiccoughs, a new product would have to be found. I got lucky with the first one: an in-house lemongrass cleaner I bought from a local market. Unfortunately, their supply chain took a hit too and there will be no replacement bottle. If I was my mother, this wouldn’t matter. I’m pretty sure she’s still working on the Christmas soap I got her for the turn of the millennium. She doses by the drop. I’m not wasteful but I am more liberal with my applications.

At least I’m not overwhelmed with choices. The situation at the grocery store was Lysol or the house brand. The latter had a ladybug on it and smelled like dirt. The Lysol smelled like apples.

Apples for the win.

I should’ve gone with dirt.

What exactly is wrong with Lysol, that venerable product that allows you to “clean, disinfect, and deodorize” with one spritz? For starters, you can’t adjust the nozzle. You can’t choose between “spray” and “stream”.  I was nonplussed. I’m supposed to live with only-stream in the twenty-first century? Even dollar-store brands offer dispersal choice. I expect more for my five dollars.

Like cleaning power. Unfortunately, grease removal isn’t part of the product’s skill set, despite the label’s promise that “powerful cleaning” will be found within.

Of course, I didn’t ask for clarification. I assumed “powerful” meant “strong enough to clean stubborn messes” [3] but maybe they were going in a different direction? Maybe they meant “it has a strong emotional effect”? The lack of efficacy certainly has me strongly irked.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. Perhaps expecting good cleaning was my mistake. Lysol’s main claim to fame is disinfecting and on that, perhaps they deliver: I don’t have a microscope or slides to verify my home bacteria count.

But, in my opinion, as a cleaning product, Lysol All-Purpose Cleaner makes an excellent paperweight.  

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[1] Soderbergh, Steven. Contagion. Warner Bros., 2011.

[2] I’m trying to quit complaining. I’ve been flipping the script so what starts as a complaint ends up as an expression of appreciation for the things I’ve been lucky enough to receive.

[3] This is an advertising tag line for some product or other and I would cite it properly if I could remember or find it but I can’t, so, apologies.

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Method Cleaning Products.