Our Favorite Cleaning Products We Used This Year

Lisa Freedman
Lisa FreedmanExecutive Lifestyle Director
Lisa Freedman is the Executive Lifestyle Director at The Kitchn. She has never met a cheese or a washi tape she didn't like. She lives in New York state with her husband and their pup, Millie.
updated May 1, 2019
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
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(Image credit: Hayley Kessner)

They say a man is only as good as his tools, right? So if you want a sparkling clean kitchen, you’re gonna need the right tools for the job. We spend a lot of time looking for the best cleaning supplies — and this year we found a few we really love.

(Image credit: Bed Bath and Beyond)

1. Microfiber Multi-Purpose Kitchen Towels, $13 for three at Bed, Bath & Beyond

The packaging is so unassuming, you’d probably walk right by these towels. One of our writers eventually spotted them and she was so glad she did. They’re inexpensive, soft, absorbent, and not all that bad to look at.

(Image credit: Skura Style)

2. Skura Style Sponges, $12 for four

Skura Style is a subscription sponge service, which launched this fall. Sign up and you get sponges sent to you automatically. And not just any sponges — these sponges are made of foam with antimicrobial technology that inhibits odor-causing bacteria, mold, and mildew. They’re highly absorbent and do not trap food. And the logo fades over time, so you know when you need to pull out a new sponge.

(Image credit: L:A Bruket)

“It smells like heaven — or at least my version of heaven, which is to say lemongrass,” says our former Managing Editor, Geraldine Campbell. “It has just enough lather to feel like my hands are getting clean, without drying them out. And while I don’t know enough about soap to speak with authority, the ingredients are organic and it feels like the good stuff.”

(Image credit: Kelli Foster)

4. Just-Boiling Water

There is something in your kitchen that’s a super cleaning agent, and you’re probably not using it often enough. And that’s silly — because it’s free (or almost free). That super cleaner is just-boiling water, and it costs about $0.0005 a gallon here in New York City, where everything is expensive!

5. The Laundress Surface Cleaner, $12 for 16 ounces

Our tester had some minor issues upon receiving her cleaner in the mail (read: a leaking bottle). But once she got that under control, she reveled in the oh-so-clean-smelling scents and the cleaner’s effectiveness.

See how it went:

An Honest Review of The Laundress Cleaning Supplies

(Image credit: Grove Co. )

6. All-Purpose Concentrate, $6 for two 1-ounce bottles at Grove Collaborative

“Recently, Grove introduced a line of cleaning concentrates and I instantly fell in love. I could use my own spray bottles to ‘make’ cleaners and ditch a few of those mainstream packaged cleaners,” says our Associate Food Editor, Meghan Splawn. “Not only do I feel like a cleaning queen every time I pour a small package of concentrate into a clean bottle and add some water, but I’ve also gotten to customize my cleaning caddy into a Pinterest-worthy stash of brown, blue, and clear glass bottles.”

(Image credit: Amazon)

If there’s a way to use fewer paper towels, we’re always going to be all about it. Microfiber cloths can help with that. And they’re super effective when it comes to cleaning up messes and bacteria.

More on Microfiber Cloths

(Image credit: Amazon)

8. Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, $3.50 for four

We’ve used a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to get spilled coffee out of a white cotton dress, clean the surface of a greasy stovetop, remove stains from coffee mugs, and more. We have yet to find a job this seriously magical sponge can’t clean.

(Image credit: Simple Human)

9. 45-Liter Butterfly Step Can, $160 at Simple Human

It’s expensive, yes. And technically maybe not a cleaning product, but one of our writers loves this trash can so much, we just had to include it in this round p. Plus, you guys all had a lot to say when we originally published this back in August.

(Image credit: Joe Lingeman)

10. Lemons

The power of lemons is real. Buy a bag (or even a few) and you can clean almost everything in your kitchen. Lemons are so great, we did a whole feature package around them in the spring.

What cleaning products did you fall in love with in 2017?