I am somewhat suspicious of cleaning hacks.

Half of them are just TikTok chemistry experiments performed by people who do not own the surface they are ruining.

But some are genuinely useful. Especially the boring ones.

In [Lynsey Crombie’s This Morning segment on refreshing your home with things you already own](https://www.itv.com/thismorning/articles/revive-and-refresh-your-home-with-these-lynsey-crombies-hacks), she suggests shaving foam for foggy mirrors and shower screens, denture tablets for freshening a toilet, toothpaste for grubby white grout, micellar water for make-up marks on carpet, a tennis ball for floor scuffs, bicarb for marks on walls, and even a walnut for small scratches in wood.

None of this is glamorous. That is why I like it.

Because the cleaning aisle has become ridiculous. Every tiny household problem is apparently a new product category now.

Glass spray.  
Bathroom spray.  
Grout spray.  
Stain spray.  
Scuff remover.  
Odour eliminator.  
Shower screen magic foam.  
Some £6 bottle that promises to “reset” your sink, whatever that means.

Meanwhile, most of us already have a cupboard full of half-used bottles, old cloths, random sponges, bicarb, vinegar, toothpaste, and cleaning things we bought once after seeing a reel at 11pm.

I like the idea of doing a “use what you have” reset before buying anything else.

Open the cupboard.  
Pull everything out.  
Throw away the empty bottles you have weirdly kept.  
Check the bathroom cabinet.  
Patch-test anything before putting it on fabric, paint, carpet or wood.  
And please do not start mixing products like you are making a potion. Some combinations are genuinely unsafe.

But for the small annoying jobs? Try the cheap thing first.

A clean tennis ball on floor scuffs before you panic about the flooring.

Toothpaste on grubby grout before buying another specialist cleaner.

Micellar water on a make-up stain before replacing the cushion cover.

Bicarb on wall marks before repainting a whole area because one child dragged a chair into it.

The bigger point is not really about cleaning.

It is that home admin gets expensive when our first instinct is to buy a solution instead of checking whether we already own one.

And honestly, most of us own too much already.

Before you buy another cleaning product, check the random stuff you already own