-We need to talk about cleaning hacks.

Who doesn't love saving time cleaning? I mean, cleaning is an unenjoyable job, I am the first person to admit that, and that is why cleaning hacks are so magnetic. They just draw you in, you want it to work, you wanna believe in it, but do they always work? Well, in this video, we're gonna dispel some things around cleaning info you find on the internet, whether it's weird TikTok videos, strange uses for products, or cleaning hacks that perhaps seem too good to be true. And just a quick reminder, if you haven't done so already, to subscribe to Clean My Space channel, and give this video a thumbs up for rainbows. It's a polarizing platform, and that's a nice way to put it. TikTok obviously has created all kinds of new content categories. One of the ones that I find the most perplexing is the reverence of the toilet. I mean, never in history has a toilet been featured so prominently. Anthropologists will probably write about this in hundreds of years from now, but people are obsessed with dumping things in the toilet and filming it in a TikTok video. And that's just one of the weird kind of cleaning subcategories I've seen going on on TikTok. But I wanna be really clear about something, TikTok is generally speaking an entertainment platform. Sure, I have some TikTok videos up there. Yeah, you can find us at Clean My Space. Go ahead and give it a follow. I don't fully understand the platform myself, but I'm doing my best. That said, there are people that really get the platform, and some people aren't there to help you clean better. They're just there to make you think they're cleaning something. Have you seen these TikTok videos where people are dumping pink and purple? Well, it kind of looks like my sweater, actually. Okay, you're cleaning that up. The concerning thing about this type of content is threefold. First of all, it is dangerous. It's misleading. The people who are making these videos, they're not chemists. They're not reading the back of the product labels to understand the ingredients. And mixing ingredients together, especially when it comes to cleaning products, can be quite dangerous. Products that contain bleach mixed with other things can create very dangerous reactions. Even vinegar mixed with certain things can create dangerous reactions. So if you're gonna take cleaning advice from someone, take it from someone who knows their stuff. Second of all, it is wasteful. Not only is it costing whomever is making that video more money, that is no way to clean a toilet, and it's also bad for the environment. And finally, the more products you use, the harder you have to work to clean. So it's actually way more inefficient to use more product when you're cleaning a toilet. So watching this is essentially completely misleading you when it comes to properly cleaning your toilet. We've been making cleaning YouTube videos for the past 10 plus years, and we're not always gonna get everything right. But the good news is, mea culpa, we can admit when we're wrong. And one of the things I can tell you we were wrong about was mixing vinegar and baking soda together. And in fact, when I see it now, when I see people talking about it now, now that that has been dispelled, it drives me crazy because truly, vinegar and baking soda on their own are fantastic for cleaning. Used in succession are fantastic for cleaning. But used together, they create air, salt, and water. So do yourself a favor. If you're gonna use vinegar, use it because it's got acidic, deodorizing, and degreasing properties. Or if you're gonna use baking soda, use it because it's got mild abrasion, whitening, and deodorizing properties. Like I say, you can use them separately. You can use them one after the other. You can mix them with other things. But using them together is totally useless. As someone who exists in the cleaning space on the internet, I am actually proud to say that my house doesn't look like it could be in a magazine tomorrow. You know, I don't have the perfect farmhouse kitchen or the perfectly made bed with 19 pillows with a karate chop or the container porn fridge, pantry, linen closet, under bathroom counter, et cetera. That is not my style. And actually, I have a beef with container porn or storage solutions. Let me go down this rabbit hole with you, okay? What ends up happening is we see these things online and we're like, oh my God, I want all these cute containers. And if they're rainbow or if they're all nautical. And then we get really excited about that. And then we spend money and we buy those things. And then we organize all the things we actually don't need and try to make room for this new storage solution. Even superfluous things like a box for all your juice boxes. This stuff doesn't make sense to me. For me, a couple things. I don't talk about that stuff. I don't show pictures of that stuff because it doesn't make sense to me. I really think we should be living with less, not more. That's number one. Number two, I don't like the idea of having to go out and buy baskets, especially if they're plastic containers. I think if you need a storage container. So we are kind of organizing all of my daughter's crafts and toys and we're just using old shipping boxes like from Amazon. We're painting them. My daughter can color on them. You can put wrapping paper over them. Whatever you wanna do. But that way you don't have to buy anything and you're actually repurposing a product. So it's really easy to get drawn into the sexiness of container porn, but I am begging you. Please, please, please see past it. Declutter first, then organize, save money and don't go out and buy plastic stuff if you don't need to. Do the best you can until you know better and when you know better, do better. That's a quote by Maya Angelou. I might have gotten a word off, but you get the essence. And I say this quote because it has to do with cleaning hacks. And again, a Maya culpa here. Now, the business of the internet is interesting. A great title or a weird image gets clicks. Clicks earn people money. So what do people do who have business on the internet? They put out clickbait. Titles that sound really good, thumbnails that look really appealing, anything to get you to click. Now, I'm not saying that we create clickbait content necessarily, but we have definitely put titles out there before that we have felt have been a curiosity for our audience that we've wanted to capitalize on. For example, Cleaning With Coca-Cola. That was something we did years ago and that article is still on our website. We might actually take it down after this video. But all that to say, Cleaning With Coca-Cola isn't a great cleaning hack. The same thing goes for using hydrogen peroxide and baking soda to clean a cookie sheet. In fact, I've seen lots of articles about that online. A few years back, we had a whole video prepared on this exact cleaning hack because it sounded great. But in our pre-test, it failed miserably, which is why we scrapped the whole thing. What about microwaving sponges? I talked about that quite a few years back. And then a couple of years ago, when I was working with Scotch Brite, I was sitting in their headquarters talking with the sponge team. And I brought that very thing up and they said to me, Melissa, it is virtually impossible to disinfect a sponge. You can microwave it, you can boil it. There's just no way because of the cellular structure of a sponge. And after that, we did not talk about it anymore. But let me tell you, the internet is full of information telling you to microwave a sponge. Really, if you wanna clean a sponge, you gotta just rinse it, let it dry. And every 30 days or so, you gotta replace it. That's the way it's done. So cleaning hacks sometimes exist because they work, but sometimes they exist to get you to click so someone can make money on that article. Buyer beware. Now this one's contentious. I'm feeling a little sweaty, but I'm gonna go there anyway. And that is off-label use of products when it comes to cleaning. Now, I know that certain products can accomplish certain results. However, when a product is made at a company, it goes through a battery of tests to make sure that the product can do what it says it is supposed to do. On the intended surface, it is supposed to be used on. Therefore, if a product can clean a surface, but it wasn't necessarily tested for that surface, there's no telling what the long-term effects of that use can be. So if you're using, say, a product that should be used for laundry on something like a floor, the company that made that laundry detergent for sure did not test how effectively it could clean a floor and what the long-term consequences of that might look like. So sure, could it work? Of course. Is it the best thing to do? Not necessarily. Are there other ways that you can accomplish the same thing? For sure. My philosophy on cleaning holds strong. Understand the products, tools, and techniques, and you will know how to get the job done right the first time. I think cleaning hacks should exist for one of the following three reasons. First, it saves you time. Legitimately saves you time. Second, it saves you money or allows you to upcycle something. Or third, it does the job for you in a pinch. I don't think a cleaning hack should be the way in which one cleans their home on a regular basis, but I do think there are some creative ways that we can incorporate cleaning hacks that actually do work into our routine. All of this to say, buyer beware, be mindful of the cleaning hacks that you hear about or see, and if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. So whether you're watching cleaning content online to learn how to clean or to be entertained or to avoid cleaning your own home, just be media savvy when you go about doing it. And that brings me to this week's comment question, which is, what is the most ridiculous cleaning thing that you have seen online, whether it's here on YouTube or on TikTok or on Instagram, what just absolutely blew your mind in the worst possible way? Let me know in the comments down below. Like I have to say, I think the squirting of the products in the toilet for me has really topped it, but I'd love to see what you come up with. If you want pro advice on how to clean a number of things in your home, you can check out our Clean Like a Pro playlist. And if you wanna support the Clean My Space channel, you can of course do so by subscribing to the channel or visiting the Makers Clean website where all of our microfiber cleaning tools are available. Thanks so much for watching and we'll see you next time.