My Favorite Unexpected Cleaning Tools for the Kitchen and Bathroom

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Credit: Product images courtesy of Amazon

This is a website about hacks, so you know I'm not going to advocate for a cleaning product unless it really gets the job done. Lifehacker has years' worth of archives explaining how, for the most part, common things like hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and vinegar get the major cleaning jobs taken care of, and all you need is a rag or a sponge to go with them. Still, there are some more specialized products that are worth having on hand. These are what I use to make cleaning easier and faster.

First up, you need a little squeegee. In fact, I think you should have a few. The first one should be stored in your shower and, after you finish washing up, you should use it to get the fog, scum, and water off your shower doors and walls. Doing this every time you bathe takes just a few seconds, but drastically reduces how much and how often you need to clean the tile and glass in the shower. Get one with an adhesive holder so it dries straight up and down, then stick it to the shower wall. This one is $9.59.

Second, you should keep one in the kitchen. Use it to scrape wet messes off your countertops or to gather spills on your floor. Why waste a bunch of paper towels or dirty up a rag when you could just push the wet mess off the counter and into a container, then put it in the trash? Pick up a two-pack for $13.99.

We aren't finished with squeegees, actually. You also need a gigantic one for your floor. This will replace your broom and I'm serious. It's $29.99 (though you can apply a 30% coupon on Amazon right now) and it solves all the annoying little problems you face with a regular broom. There are no bristles, so hair and dust don't get caught in anything and there are no gaps for dirt and debris to slip through. To wash it, you just wipe down the silicone. What's even better is that, unlike a standard broom, you can tackle wet messes with this, dragging all the droplets and rivulets into a more concise puddle that is a lot easier to wipe up.

Next, consider some soap-dispensing brushes. You may have seen these for dishwashing, which is great, but they're also perfect for scrubbing floors, tile, and hard-to-reach spots, all without having to fill up a whole container of soapy water and drag it around. Obviously, keep the one you use for household cleaning away from the one you use for the dishes, so get at least two. Better yet, this one for $9.89 comes with detachable heads, so you only need one handle.

Speaking of brushes, it's time to upgrade to an electric one. Stop getting on your hands and knees, putting too much elbow grease in, or over-exerting yourself when you could outsource the strenuous part of your labor to technology. You can get an electric spin scrubber with a telescopic handle and eight different brush heads for $49.99, then use it as a handheld or long-reach solution when you just don't want to scrub.

My favorite cleaning solutions and products

The wide array of tools and gadgets available to address needs you didn't realize you had is great and all, but what about cleaning solutions and products? It might seem like, hey, an all-purpose cleaner is an all-purpose cleaner, but that's not true. For instance, I recently tested out "double concentrated" solutions from Pine Sol and Fabuloso and found both of them to be way more effective than their standard-concentration predecessors. Did you know floor-cleaning solutions were innovating? Well, now you do.

Another innovation I really like counts as both a tool and a product. Yes, you probably have a melamine sponge, like a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, on hand and yes, you probably also have some kind of foaming soap you use around the house. But now they've been combined into one product: It's called the Mr. Clean Ultra Foamy Magic Eraser and I can no longer live without it. You get five for $8.94 and with them, you can clean a lot faster and easier. It takes me far fewer passes of the eraser over any kind of grime to remove it than it does when I use the original version.

And the last unexpected product that has really changed how I clean is this set of coatings from spotLESS. Three bottles of coating cost $24.99 and you get one for glass and mirrors, one for toilets, and one for sinks and fixtures. I spray these on their respective surfaces after cleaning and have definitely noticed I need to clean those areas again more infrequently. The coating works to keep grime from accumulating and makes it easier to wipe off when it eventually does appear. The glass spritz has proven especially helpful for the glass table I got a few months ago. Again, I didn't realize I had these problems until I found a product that fixed them. We're truly living in the future.