Best All-Purpose Cleaners for Every Place in Your Home

Here are my picks for the seven best all-purpose cleaning products for keeping your house clean.

If you can have only one all-purpose cleaning product in the cupboard, without a doubt, it should be Mr. Clean Freak deep-cleaning mist spray. Brian A Jackson/Shutterstock

All-purpose cleaners are designed to clean everything from dust bunnies to toilet rings and grease spills. I’ve evaluated many commercial products for effectiveness, ease of use, versatility, price, and overall value, and here are my picks for the seven best all-purpose cleaning products for keeping your house clean.

Best Inexpensive

Don’t let its low price fool you. Soft Scrub all-purpose cleanser is fantastic for cleaning almost anything, including countertops, sinks, showers, toilet bowls, and appliances. It removes grease, grime, sticky stuff, soap scum, lime scale, and hard water stains from surfaces. It’s fast-acting and easy to use. Simply spray on a cloth or tissue and wipe away any mess.

Best for Gunky Grunge

Is The Pink Stuff really a miracle cleaner? Millions of social media fans think it is since it has become all the rage on TikTok. But I wasn’t buying all the hype without trying it.

I tested The Pink Stuff on a few grungy, grimy situations, and it performed really well on porcelain sinks, tubs, and toilets—even on those decals and anti-slip patches on the bottom of older tubs. It left stainless steel faucets, fixtures, and appliances dazzling! It made quick work of cleaning the glass oven door and glass cooktop to a like-new sparkle. But it did nothing to clean white grout, which is puzzling.

So it is a miracle? Actually, I would put it in that category for gunky, grungy situations, as mentioned, but not across the board for every cleaning job, so it really cannot qualify as “all-purpose.” But for the very reasonable price, you won’t be disappointed with the price for all the things that The Pink Stuff can do. It deserves a spot in your cleaning arsenal.

As always, test any new product first in an inconspicuous place!

Best for Kitchen

As a natural, plant-based product, Better Life all-purpose cleaner is an exceptional option for cleaning in the kitchen. It’s safe, nontoxic, and scent-free. Ingredients listed include soap bark, coconut, and corn—no harsh chemicals or synthetic soaps. You can even skip that extra rinse. Not only for the kitchen, this product is also excellent for daily bathroom cleaning.

Best Overall All-Purpose Cleaner

If you can have only one all-purpose cleaning product in the cupboard, without a doubt, it should be Mr. Clean Freak deep-cleaning mist spray. First, it comes in a unique spray bottle that actually works. And Mr. Clean Freak cleans grout, tile, appliances, cabinets, countertops, showers, sinks, toilets, mirrors, windows, ceilings, and walls like a clean freak!

It removes soap scum, urine stains, water rings, and grease stains—on just about any surface you can think of and any messy situation you can imagine. Easy to use, too. Simply spray onto the area where the cleaning needs to take place and then wipe off with a damp cloth.

Amazingly, 77 percent of Amazon reviewers give Mr. Clean Freak deep-cleaning mist five stars, and we know why. It’s an excellent cleaning product.

Best Multipurpose Cleaning Concentrate

Short on storage space for cleaning products? Consider a gallon jug of Fabuloso concentrate. When diluted per label instructions, it makes 64 gallons of multipurpose cleaning liquid—just one-quarter cup of concentrated Fabuloso to 1 gallon of water. Depending on how often you clean, this could last for years. Sixty-four gallons!

Even more, it works well for routine cleaning and maintenance.

Best Scent in an All-Purpose Cleaner

Sure, homemade cleaners can work well, but you might find something missing. Things look clean, but you miss that subtle, fragrant scent that makes everything smell clean. If this describes you and your family, you will be thrilled with Mrs. Meyer’s all-purpose cleaning spray. It’s a great cleaner, available in scents of lemon verbena and lavender.

Best Value All-Purpose Cleaner

Of all the choices, Lysol clean and fresh multi-surface cleaner will likely give you the best bang for your buck. That’s because it is a disinfectant plus an excellent surface cleaner. When applied to hard surfaces, the multiuse formula kills 99.9 percent of germs in one minute flat. And it goes beyond disinfecting. This all-in-one cleanser removes stains, cuts through grease, and melts away soap scum. It works best on nonporous surfaces such as plastic, tile, and glass, but you can safely use this product to clean almost everything.

You can find resources for each of the products mentioned above at EverydayCheapskate.com/allpurpose.

Dear Readers: We would love to hear from you. What topics would you like to read about? Please send your feedback and tips to [email protected].