Hey everyone,
Inspired to post this following discussions on a recent thread.
Now, I used to LOVE bleach. I was bleach crazy. I could bleach ANYTHING. And did. I always used those "kitchen cleaner with bleach" types. Until a passing conversation with a chemistry teacher friend of mine who alerted me to something - bleach is not a very good cleaner.
I did a bit of research on this, and found that he was actually right. "Bleaching" and "cleaning" are very different.
Whilst bleach is a very good disinfectant, it's a rubbish cleaner. It's very easily desensitised and looses it's germ-killing ability over time. So if you've an old bottle of bleach lying around, chuck it. Bleach is also desensitised by organic material - things like bodily fluids, food items etc. So if you pour bleach on these, you might as well just be pouring water on them for all the good it will do to clean it.
Bleach doesn't contain any surfactants. Surfactants, so I'm informed, are found in most cleaning products including washing powder and surface cleaners. It's the "soap" part of the cleaner and does the actual cleaning bit - the lifting of the dirt and grease.
My friend suggested that if I was so adamant about using bleach, I should wash the surface down first with a good old cloth rung out in hot, soapy water (just washing up liquid), then spray diluted bleach on it (or neat, in case of the toilet) and rinse this off.
Well, what a faff that was! I gave up on that after a week. Whilst I am quite fastidious with my toilets, so I've no problem washing them down with loo cleaner before bleaching them, I found it far too excessive for day to day cleaning of the kitchen, dining table, sink etc. So I've started using just normal antibacterial kitchen cleaners and disinfectant around the sink.
Whilst I know that doing this, my kitchen is probably a lot cleaner than it was, I still miss the bleach. I'd sort of been conditioned to associate the smell with cleanliness and even though I know it's not the best way to clean, I can't help but still splash a little bit around.
So, does anyone else get a little bit bleach happy from time to time?