A Minimalist Cleaning Supplies List for Life After 60

Open the cabinet under your kitchen sink and count the bottles. Then count the jobs they actually do. For most of us the second number is much smaller, which is the whole case for a minimalist cleaning supplies list.

I co-founded a laundry brand in Australia, so I spend more time reading cleaning labels than most people. Plenty of those bottles do the same job in a different color. After 60, that clutter costs more than shelf space. A smaller home has a smaller cabinet, a fixed income makes a fourth spray bottle sting, and a full jug of detergent gets no lighter as wrists and hands get sorer.

Five products cover nearly every job in the house. If your cabinet is part of a bigger move, Sixty and Me‘s piece on downsizing to minimalism covers the other rooms.

What cleaning products do you actually need?

Start with what you clean most often. For most homes that’s clothes, dishes, the bathroom and the kitchen, and one good product for each is enough. These are the five I’d keep.

1. A Laundry Detergent You Dose Properly

Modern detergents carry enzymes, and Michigan State University’s Center for Research on Ingredient Safety explains that they’re designed for washing in cold water. Proteases, the enzymes that break down protein stains like egg and grass, do their work without heat. Cold suits those stains anyway, because hot water can set egg and blood before the wash lifts them.

Most of us pour too much from the measuring cap, and the extra doesn’t make clothes cleaner. Leftover detergent dulls fabric, stiffens towels and can irritate skin, and a drum full of suds cushions clothes so they rub against each other less.

Weight is the other problem with a big jug. The Arthritis Foundation’s cleaning tips say, “If squeezing a spray bottle or lugging a heavy bottle of laundry detergent is tough, look for easy-to-handle packaging.” Pods, small boxes of powder and sheets all fit. I use pre-measured laundry detergent sheets, one per load with nothing to pour, and I should say my company makes them.

Keep a gentle enzyme-free wash for wool and silk, because a protease can’t tell a stain from the protein in the fiber.

2. Dishwashing Liquid

A bottle of dish soap does more than dishes. A few drops in a bowl of warm water will wipe down counters, the stovetop and the fronts of appliances, so the kitchen spray can go. Check the manual before you use anything on stainless steel or stone, since some makers are particular about what touches their finish.

3. A Cream Cleanser

One mild cream cleanser handles sinks, tubs, tile and the stovetop, so the separate bathroom scrub and kitchen scrub can both go. The label tells you which surfaces it suits. Test a hidden corner on anything old or delicate.

4. Oxygen Bleach

Oxygen bleach is sodium percarbonate, a powder that releases hydrogen peroxide when it dissolves. One tub whitens, soaks and lifts stains, and in most homes it can replace chlorine bleach, which damages wool, silk and spandex. Oxygen bleach isn’t for wool or silk either, so read the care label first.

5. Microfiber Cloths

A few good microfiber cloths dust and clean glass with plain water, which takes care of the glass spray too. Wash them on their own, without softener.

What Should Be in Your Cleaning Caddy?

Put the five in a caddy with a couple of spare cloths, a scrub brush and a long-handled duster, and carry it from room to room. A caddy at waist height means no kneeling to dig through a low cabinet, and nothing gets bought twice because it was hiding at the back. For dividing up the work itself, Sixty and Me has a good piece on household chores.

How Often Should You Do Laundry for One Person?

Wait for a full load. For one person that’s often about once a week for clothes, with towels and sheets on their own schedule. Half loads tempt you to guess the dose, and the cap usually gets filled the same way whatever is in the drum.

Cleaning Products You Don’t Need

Fabric softener is the first to go. CHOICE, the Australian consumer group, points out that softener coats fibers and cuts absorbency, which is the opposite of what you want from a towel.

After that, let go of a different spray for every room, a separate glass cleaner, dryer sheets, scented boosters, pre-wash sprays that duplicate each other, and chlorine bleach. If something still has a use, finish it before you toss the bottle, and then don’t replace it.

Let’s Chat:

What’s been sitting at the back of your cleaning cabinet the longest? And which product would you never give up?