To find the trend for cleaning on social media equally horrifying and fascinating?

[Rabbitjam]

Apologies if it has been brought up before.

I'm finding myself scrolling through instagram looking at hinchers and zoflora addicts. All these identical grey and silver houses. Everything bleached within an inch of its life. Some women (they are predominantly women) spray their beds with dettol every day. Furniture sprayed with zoflora and fabric conditioner (which apparently can make it less flame retardant). I don't live like this, my house is clean and fairly tidy but hardly on that scale. I simply don't have the time for a start.

I can't imagine the impact on their health breathing in all those cleaning products, but also on their mental health- it seems obsessive for some, taking over every aspect of their lives.
It also irks my feminism.

Of course though it is instagram so not necessarily "real life".

What are your thoughts on this?

It's very hyacinth bucket though isn't it. This manic need to show off your clean and tidy home. I'm very happy to be a bit more princess Anne about the whole thing. Dogs, muck, mess it's all good for you.

Couldn't live in an immaculate house. It's not a home.

Also exposure to germs is good for you.

YANBU It infuriates me, the chemicals that the likes of Mrs Hinch uses, and the quantities, are shocking I'm half expecting her followers to start growing new heads! Why are people using a disinfectant on worktops FFS?!

Also, did no one clean before Instagram? 🧐

I’m in a Mrs Hinch group on Facebook and tbh I’ve been very disappointed in it.
I was after some good tips, routines, recommended cleaning products but most of the posts seem to be about showing off zoflora collections. It’s too over the top and just so bad for the environment.
But, I’m loathe to leave because I find the endless posts about pink stuff hoarding grimly fascinating.

I saw a woman post in a Mrs Hinch group the other day that her husband had knocked some wine over on a carpet round someone's house and she needed to get it out otherwise she'd be in deep shit. Needless to say none of the Huns advice was to "let him sort it himself"

The best is the women who post that they have to clean their toilet and surrounding areas 5 times a day as their partners piss on the floor. Sort your flippin lives out!

I saw this thread when it was first posted so I joined the zoflora addicts group on Facebook hoping for some tips. All I see is people posting pictures of their "haul" and bragging about having 100 zoflora bottles. Why do people feel the need to have so many bottles? I bought some zoflora and it smells gross

I don’t buy half this stuff
Some of it I do like, CIf cream cleaner is lovely

I do use that Dettol spray at night on my sofa as I have a dog and it’s really good for the dog smell

A lot of it seems obsessive, laying out all the different products they use etc when I use maybe 3 or 4 max. I just think it's withe OCD or they have a lot of time to fill. How Clean is Your House was more about people who were dysfunctional & didn't clean at all.

Agree.

Question: why is bleach needed to clean a toilet? I use eco toilet stuff that seems like less foamy washing up liquid and the toilet comes up fine with a quick going over with the toilet brush.

They’d hate my house. It’s all mad colours and a combination of Mexican-inspired and country cottage styling. Not a hint of grey or silver in sight.

I also only use cleaning products in my sinks, bath and loo tbh. Pretty much everything else just gets a good dust and Hoover every couple of days unless something catastrophic has happened.

There has been a huge rise in lung cancer amongst non smoking women. Diagnosis usually happens at stage 4 ☹. Overuse of cleaning products is one of the hypotheses.

I don't understand it either. I find it deeply depressing when there are so many other things you could do with your time. It also seems incredibly anti feminist to me too. Why are women intentionally spending hours cleaning???

OP I don't know why it irks your feminism. Most people have to clean, feminists included.

On the upside OP they're doing the genepool a favour as they're destroying their fertility and their kids future fertility, and all of their immune systems

Darwin awards in slowmotion with a hint of 1950s CHAV

What a horrible, nasty, sneering, smug thing to write. It never ceases to amaze me, the things people write on a screen that they'd never say to someone's face because they wouldn't have the brass nerve.

May be because they want to clean? May be they are happy?

I don't think it's anti feminist, llewellyn I think for a lot of people who do it it's an obsession and a problem. Not the same thing as being anti feminist.

I used Zoflora for the first time yesterday. I’d never heard of it until I stumbled across Mrs Hinch. I confess I was “influenced.”

Oh my god. I think the house smelled like sick afterwards and it triggered a mild asthmatic response in DH.

Never again!

I think it’s more bizarre that people actually watch videos of this or look at the photos... I like a tidy and clean house but why on earth would you want to watch others doing it? Weird

I'll believe it's not anti-feminist when I see men wasting their time and ruining their health doing the same shit.

The Hinch lot are obsessed and some clearly need to get out more (or get a job).

if you actually watched her stories you'd know she's got long standing health problems

which will hardly be helped by spending the day breathing in strong chemicals.

@onefootinthegrave

You beat me to it. Some people on here have serious hatred of others to spout such bile. It's another form of trolling.

Certain folks highly value home cleanliness to a degree that others think is odd, others take part in cosplay, etc. If it makes someone happy let them get on with it.

I don't think it's as simple as that, though. In many cases, it clearly doesn't make them happy, because they're obsessing about it to the detriment of family life or indeed any kind of life at all. And when it comes to buying loads of plastic bottles and pouring endless chemicals into the sewage system, their happiness comes at major expense to the environment.

I'm not into it but I suppose others are. All the different weird unique youtube and instas are fun to watch sometimes.

like 5 minute crafts is hilarious

and some minimalist woman on youtube that has no furniture, allows herself one pen in the house, and wears some odd burlap sack looking clothes.

It's verging on obsession and showing-off, isn't it? How would their homes compare to an operating theatre? Unless we have a very compromised immune system to begin with we probably don't need to go to those extremes. I consider that my home is clean enough to be safe and dirty enough to be happy. That's good enough for Mr and Mrs Average.

People have Instagram accounts about cleaning 😳 I never knew. Off to have a look.
My house is reasonable. Clean but not always tidy. I have better things to do. We have a septic tank( live in the country, no mains to village) so have to be careful what we use.