Secrets of the Cleaning Boss....

So Christmas is almost upon us, and in my household  I am preparing for Christmas Day making sure that everything is clean and tidy, and everything is ready so that Christmas Day can go off with out a hitch. 

I do some rudimental things in advance, like clear the washing pile, get it all washed, ironed and put away before the last few days of Christmas, an overflowing wash basket drives me insane! Change all the beds, and get the sheets laundered and put away, keep on top of the hoovering and make sure your stairs are clean and free of bits and dog hair etc.  Spray the stairs down with Odour Neutraliser (this is enzyme based so needs a few days to eat through any bacteria present and eat the smells!). Make sure that you’ve polished everything, I use a Beeswax Polish because it really provides a good layer of protection, and clean all mirrors and pictures.  I use an alcohol based Glass Cleaner, which just evaporates any smears – which is great because as a working Mum, who is an absolute clean freak – time is definitely of the essence!

I clean everything in advance, because I am an absolute clean freak, and mess and dirt really get on my nerves, and I don’t want to spot anything that will irritate me on the day! I know….. I’m a bit bonkers! So I start out with the oven, there is nothing more welcoming than a nice smell coming from the oven from what is roasting in there.  However, there is nothing more irritating than the smell of baked on food rather than lovely Christmassy smells of roasting meat!

So I would use this product, this is a professional oven cleaner called Clinging Oven Cleaner, and it is absolutely marvellous! Forget all about those rubbish domestic ones, that take an hour at least to clean your oven, this one is the absolute bomb! This one, you just spray in to the oven cavity, generously coating the walls  with the foam, (you are of course wearing your gloves and perhaps some goggles for this!), and you leave it for 5 minutes – you don’t need to heat your oven slightly or anything like that.  This oven cleaner is highly caustic – hence the need for the googles and gloves.  This will burn your skin if you come in to contact with it, as it is very high in acid – but ohhhh my it works.

In the 5 minutes that oven cleaner takes to work, I’d empty my fridge completely! For the next task which will be the fridge, I’m all about efficiency of time!

Fill a wash basin with warm water, and wipe off the foam from the inside of your oven, and with it will come the baked on food that is stuck to the walls. Now this oven cleaner is the BEST in the business, so the first time you use it be prepared to wipe & rinse, and wipe & rinse, and wipe & rinse …. Because everything that is in there – will come out.  I maintain my oven with Lift Degreasing Spray which just takes off the spots of grease on the glass door which look unsightly.  Lift is a great product, because it works just like a spray and wipe, but it lifts all of the brown spots really easily.

Believe me, I’m not exaggerating here, these products have been personally tested by me – and I wouldn’t recommend them if I didn’t believe in them!

So next we move on to the fridge, remove all shelves (all the food is emptied and stored elsewhere) and stick them through the dishwasher on a high temperature.  If anything won’t fit that’s OK, because we can deal with that later.  The reason I’m advocating a high temperature for your fridge shelves is because nothing (absolutely nothing!!) is more effective than thermal disinfection.  So if you want to kill all bacteria, put everything through the dishwasher on a high temperature to make sure that all bacteria are killed.  Then I’d take a Kitchen Cleaner Sanitiser, and spray it generously over the walls, the bottom and the ceiling of the fridge, get rid of the little door pockets and if you can cram them in to the dishwasher just shove them in there too!

The Cleaner Sanitiser that I am advocating is a BSEN 1276, which means it has been tested to kill all bacteria withing 30 seconds, so off you go and wet a new cloth (or a cloth that has been rinsed and microwaved for 15 seconds – this is a trick I absolutely love and whenever anyone in our house comes to use the microwave the cloth is in there!) and just wipe it down.  If there are any sticky bits, just use a sponge scourer,  and agitate it a bit.  If the sticky bit won’t come off, just use a tiny bit of Lift and it should remove it really easily.  Once you’ve finished wiping, rinse your cloth and microwave it again!

Any shelves or pockets that won’t fit in the dishwasher, just rinse it, clean it with a bit of washing up liquid, and spray it liberally with the Cleaner Sanitiser to sanitise it.

I’d then move on to cleaning the bathrooms next, and I have a fool proof kit which really saves time.  So the first product I would clean the sinks, showers and baths with would be Cleanfast.  This product really is a super hero in terms of removal of body fat (the oily stuff you get in your shower tray that sticks to the side – or it also presents itself as a pink residue between your tiles!), and with a little agitation with a sponge scourer this stuff works absolute wonders! I’d use it like any other bathroom cleaner, spray it on and agitate it with my sponge scourer. I always get in to the showers, so that I can get them spotless – there is nothing more annoying than cleaning the bathroom, then getting in to the shower and seeing you’ve missed a bit!

Once the main bits are done, I’d move on to the toilets, I use these Antibacterial Wipes to wipe the rims, the lids and the backs of the toilet.  These wipes are on a roll, soaked in a solution that is proven to kill 99.99% of bacteria, and carries an accreditation to prove that it does so.  Many of the domestic products, claim to kill 99.999% of bacteria but don’t have any accreditation to prove that they actually do! I’d also use these wipes to wipe down, window sills, top of cupboards etc – just because they are really handy!

I’d then put some toilet cleaner down the toilets, depending on my mood, I might put down some of this, Act Toilet Cleaner which removes all marks and stains and even hard water marks to really maintain my toilets and ensure they look clean.  This toilet cleaner is enzyme based, so it basically eats through the bacteria and stains to make sure its really clean.  I’d try to do this when everyone is out, so that you don’t have people flushing the toilet and getting rid of my phenomenal toilet cleaner before it has done its’ work!

Alternatively, if I wanted to use a cheaper toilet cleaner, just to freshen the toilet I’d use this Eco Friendly Toilet Cleaner which provides a nice smell and a clean toilet .  Both of the toilet cleaners I choose to use are Eco Friendly so are composed of enzymes, with no harmful effects to the environment.

I’d then stock the Toilet Roll, and I use this one (read the last blog there is a good reason for this!), and I mop my floors with Apeel floor cleaner, which I buy in 5 litres.  Apeel has degreasing properties so lifts scuffs and grease, but it also smells absolutely heavenly!

I’d then go downstairs, and hoover and wash the kitchen floors, sometimes if it is a bit dirtier with Apeel, but the day before Christmas, I’d wash it with Clean and Shine, to really bring up the shine, and provide a really pleasing lustre to my kitchen floor!  

I’m responsible for cleaning for Christmas – and also making the table presentable – so I’d then set the table, cleaning all place settings, with Cleaner Sanitiser, polishing the cutlery with a jar of boiling water then buffing each piece of cutlery up to a high shine using one a freshly laundered cloth!  

Finally after everyone has gone to bed on Christmas Eve, I’d very quietly, brush the rest of my floors (we have wooden floors throughout our house – but if you have carpets, just get the hoover out as soon as the kids have gone to bed, but before they have fallen asleep!) and wash them down with Clean and Shine. 

On Christmas Day, if you do what I do, you have absolutely prepared, and I am lucky enough that my husband does all the cooking, and I just have to assist with dishing up etc, so I really do get to relax and enjoy the day. 

So now you know all of my secrets, and all of the products that I use to ensure that my house is absolutely spotless……

Merry Christmas from everyone here at Astral Hygiene.