All my life I grew up watching adults add bleach to dishwater, and felt better after I read “experts’” advice to add white vinegar, instead. Decades later, it finally “Dawned™️” on me that detergent is basic, somewhere on the alkalinity scale between 8 and 9. So it’s the soap that bleach interacts with to create the problem, not the alkalinity. On the other hand, I’ve noticed white vinegar killing the suds and having to use more elbow grease to clean greasy cooking pans. After having done only the most basic chores after a couple of months, I’m working slowly, in increments to clean up a disgusting mess and have been in the kitchen a couple of days, and this realization hit me while thinking about greasy residue on countertops from making drip coffee and the air frying and pan sautėing (steam), so in order to clean and disinfect, it’s necessary to clean with dishwater and rinse with white vinegar. This after I’ve already “cleaned” ¾ of surface space in my kitchen! 😠 I ran the thoughts about bleach, vinegar to dishwater by qwen by asking “Is it okay to add bleach or vinegar to dishwater to add extra efficacy and disinfection for kitchen use?” And it confirmed.
I feel stupid, for decades.
The same for bathrooms. How many times have you heard to mix a tablespoon of dish detergent to a cup of white vinegar and quart of water to effectively clean and descale the sink, tub and shower, and toilet? You’re going to want to clean with detergent first and follow up with a white vinegar and water soak and scrub, then rinse with white vinegar and water, then squeegee off/dry surfaces to prevent mold and scaling cycle beginning with the rinse!
I’m open to any time, money, and ecological budget friendly options anyone can offer, what a pita. Thank you for reading my rant.
detergent and dish soap are not the same thing and work differently, which is why you can’t use dish soap in a dishwasher or washing machine. dish soap and hot water is all one needs to clean dishes. dish soap/water/vingear is decent for cleaning surfaces and removing mineral scale, not pure sanitizing. i would personally only use bleach in the bathroom or whiten clothes. i don’t really handle raw meat in my kitchen so for that you need a strong sanitizer, and even bleach won’t fully get rid of the viruses, etc. also im not a chemist lol
Bleach should stay far away from anything food related, imo. The vinegar is just a trick to remove bad odors, it’s not meant to act as a cleaning agent.
It cleans certain things well. I generally don’t want commercial chemical cleaning agents in my kitchen, other than dish soap.
Modern dish washing soap is absolutely fantastic. Put some of it in a spray bottle alongside water.
I like living here in the future with synthetic cleaning products.
100%! I bought so many “degreasing” toxic spray cleaners only to find out a little dish detergent on a rag cleans and degreases better than anything.
It leaves a residue that causes dirt and germs to stick more easily. A vinegar rinse neutralizes the basic properties of soap.
Yeah wash and sanitize are usually separate steps.
Look into hypochlorous acid. Much more effective than bleach for sanitizing.
You can get a doohickey that generates it out of uniodized salt and water. (Make sure to get one without chromium or smth, I don’t remember exactly so do your own research). Some way of measuring pH to get the solution close to 5.5. I use spritzes of white vinegar to bring the water pH down.
It’s food safe, skin safe, just about everything safe, and kills shit 10 times as fast as bleach.
This I like! I’ll have to see about cost-effectiveness when I have time, later. [This brand] (https://www.forceofnatureclean.com/bleach-vs-electrolyzed-water/#%3A~%3Atext=No.%2Cat+a+much+lower+concentration) seems pricey, but I see less expensive brands I don’t have time to look into, right now.
Thanks so much, Comrade! ❤️🫡
Oh Jesus prices have like quadrupled on some of these. After I sleep I’ll look into it some more. ebay may be a good option, idk if these are prone to breaking or degrading though.
That’s fine, I appreciate the suggestion, anyway! I’ll look later, too and thanks again!
I have never heard of any of these in my bubble tbh. Especially bleach is just never used by anyone except to get stains out of clothes. Vinegar only ever gets used to get rid of smells.
Whenever i clean something in the kitchen (never did a full clean of the kitchen ngl) i just grab the used sponge that’s laying next to the sink and use the dish soap residue as my main cleaning product lmao.
Also wtf is descaling a sink? What scales? Where do they come from? I have never seen it.
‘scale’ is mineral deposits basically
my stepmother used bleach to clean everything, and i’ve picked up that habit. maybe i should stop lol
i just grab the used sponge that’s laying next to the sink and use the dish soap residue as my main cleaning product lmao.
This is 100% spreading bacteria and viruses all over your kitchen. Salmonella, e coli, etc all live in your sponge for weeks even if it dries out fully and you are just rubbing them everywhere with nothing to disinfect them
Ah well, luckily i don’t clean the kitchen that often🙃
I just don’t use the kitchen at all. I gave up on cooking food after forcing myself to do it and became depressed and now let my roommates clean it while i take out the trash and clean the toilets. Those food drinks have been a real life saver (probably literally tbh)
https://wqa.org/Learn-About-Water/Perceptible-Issues/Scale-Deposits/
Sponges are disgusting.
Sponges and those fugly green washcloths are a massive texture nightmare for me. So this is just confirmation bias.
Whenever I need to clean battery contacts in used electronics I grab the jug of vinegar.
One time I didn’t have vinegar, so I used my aunt’s diet coke lol. Carbonic acid did clean the battery “acid”! Not very well though, it got used up quickly.
Baking soda.
The goop from alkaline batteries is basic.
Lol, my absent-minded distracted self!🤣🤣 I read what you wrote but still thought of a car’s (lead acid) battery. Yes, I’m very car dependent!
The disinfecting step requires a proper sanitizer; use detergent first, rinse, sanitize with dilute bleach (may need a rinse, or at least time to dry and degrade to salt), quat (definitely needs a rinse), iodine (no rinse), or an acid sanitizer (read the label).
The cheapest way to do this is probably to figure out what restaurants in your area are using, and where they get their stuff, and get the same if you can. Or find someone who brews beer.
Vinegar really is more of an antimicrobial, but it kills salmonella and e. coli, which I guess is good enough for everyday wipedown, but it’s not for killing COVID or other virus germs. I guess food grade peroxide is okay for that, but a bit pricey. Maybe just regular disinfectant wipes, followed with a vinegar rinse?
i use diluted antibacterial dish soap in a spray bottle for surfaces with a clean cloth then toss it in the laundry
for floors i use heavily diluted bleach and a mop
