To save a little money, some cleaning products can be used for more than their intended purpose, such as using white vinegar to clean and disinfect kitchen counter tops. But there are certain household cleaning product swaps that you should never make, as they will cause harm (costing more money in than long run) to home surfaces. Here are the top four swaps you should never make with cleaning products.
Never Swap Dish Washing Liquid for Dishwasher Detergent
Both products are meant to use to wash dirty dishes, but the products are formulated very differently and cannot be swapped out. Automatic dishwashers require a low-sudsing formula, dish washing liquid meant to be used for hand washing dishes (liquid Dawn, Joy, etc.) are high-sudsing formulas. You will have a mess of soap suds covering the kitchen floor if you put dish washing liquid in the dishwasher, plus the dishes will have to be re-washed too.
Swapping Landry Stain Remover for Carpet or Upholstery Cleaner
Stain removers designed to used on clothing stains contain concentrated amounts of soap, making them far to soapy to be used on carpets or upholstery. This includes all formulations of laundry stain removes; liquid, gel or stick. The concentrated soap is easily removed from clothing during a cycle in the washing machine, but removing concentrated soap from carpet or upholstery is extremely difficult and time consuming. If this swap is made, any soap residue left behind will feel waxy and stiff, possibly even creating a new stain or discoloration on the carpet or upholstered item.
Don’t Swap Stainless Steel Cleaner for Silver Polish
Cleaner designed to cleaned stainless steel is potent, since stainless steel is a hard metal surface. Using the strong product to clean silver can result in scratches on fine silver finishes. Don’t risk marring the finish of silver by making this cleaning product swap, stick with gentler silver polish for silver.
Don’t Clean Glass with All Purpose Spray Cleaner
Fingerprints on the glass topped table and nothing but all purpose spray cleaner on hand? Leave the fingerprints until you can procure a bottle of glass cleaner. Swapping glass cleaner for all purpose spray cleaner will leave soapy streaks all over the glass, making it look worse that is did at the start, and you’ll end up using glass cleaner to remove the soapy streaks.