So, the other day I came home and my apartment smelled weirdly of bleach. Which was really strange because I didn’t ask anyone to clean anything with bleach. I very specifically said “Please clean the stove with the rubbing alcohol” because I wanted to know how the thing that I had found on Pinterest (and regrettably didn’t re-pin) worked on our gross looking stove.
So, when I asked how it worked, I was told “not very well. But the Brillo pads you bought worked really well!” Except it’s still gross because it was my fiance who cleaned it, but I digress.
The rest of the conversation went a little like this:
K: So the rubbing alcohol didn’t work? Why does it smell like bleach?
C: I mixed it with bleach and a little bit of water.
K: That’s not what I told you to do. Did you look it up first?
C: You didn’t tell me to look it up
K: I also didn’t tell you to mix it with bleach!
And then I looked it up, and it turns out that when you mix bleach and rubbing alcohol, you make chloroform! So, after airing out the house for a few hours (did I mention it snowed the day before this happened?), I made a chart.
Disclaimer: I can’t guarantee that any of these will or won’t work as cleaning products. I also can’t guarantee that this is accurate. Most of the answers I got were from science website and product sites, and none of these (except for bleach and rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide and baking soda) have been tested by me.
[table caption=”” width=”500″ colalign=”left|left|left|left|left”]
Chemical,Vinegar,Bleach,Ammonia,Rubbing Alcohol,Hydrogen Peroxide,Baking Soda,Borax
Vinegar, ,No,Waste,Yes,No,Waste,Yes
Bleach,No, ,No,No,No,Yes,No
Ammonia,Waste,No, ,Yes,No,Yes?,Yes
Rubbing Alcohol,Yes,No,Yes, ,Yes?,Yes,Yes
Hydrogen Peroxide,No,No,No,Yes?, ,Yes,Yes
Baking Soda,Waste,Yes,Yes?,Yes,Yes, ,Yes
Borax,Yes,No,Yes,Waste,Yes,Yes,
[/table]
And, so that I don’t leave you hanging, I found a couple of great-sounding mixtures of some of the above chemicals that are supposed to be fantastic cleaners:
What do you clean with? Have you accidentally mixed the wrong chemicals and made something that you totally weren’t supposed to make? Should I be killing my fiance right about now?
