Cleaning experts agree: These throwbacks are too good not to try.
15 Old-School Cleaning Tips We Should All Start Using Again
Updated on Jan. 13, 2025
White vinegar as a spray cleaner
There are plenty of effective spray cleaners on the market, but Meneses swears by white vinegar. “Vinegar is dirt cheap, safe and works like a charm,” she says. It’s the ideal choice for removing grease, water stains and funky smells. Just mix it with some water in a spray bottle and use it to clean counters (avoid natural stone), glass, mirrors and windows for a streak-free shine.
Baking soda and lemon as a natural scrub
Baking soda is a kitchen staple, but it also can tackle stains and odors elsewhere in the home, says Meneses. It’s even better when you add a little lemon juice. “Together, they help you remove grease and leave your house smelling lemon-fresh,” she says.
Mix up a paste of baking soda and water with a little lemon, and use it to scrub stovetops, sinks and tile grout. There’s an added bonus: “It’s all natural, so you don’t have to risk your family’s health with toxic chemicals,” says Meneses.
Newspaper to keep cabinet tops dust-free
Cabinet tops might be out of sight, out of mind for you, but not for dust. Lake likes to line the tops of cabinets with newspaper for easy cleaning. “All you have to do is throw away the newspaper instead of having to clean [the cabinet top],” she explains.
The idea here is to upcycle old newspapers, but if you’re not a current subscriber, you could use tissue paper instead. In either case, you’ll spend less time replacing the paper than you would cleaning your cabinets of dust.
Contact paper as cabinet-shelf liners
Applying contact paper to kitchen cabinet shelves makes the surface smooth for easy cleaning. You might be tempted to skip the time-consuming task of lining shelves, which Lake says is fine if your shelf’s material is easy to clean.
But there’s a reason Grandma went to the trouble of lining her shelves. “If you have an older cabinet that’s hard to clean, then lining is a good thing,” Lake says.
Dawn dish soap and baking soda for stain removal
Lake says baking soda with Dawn dish soap is a powerful stain-removing duo. “It’s really great for removing oils,” she says. If you dribble butter on your shirt, for example, you can just sprinkle some baking soda and add a drop or two of Dawn before scrubbing with a toothbrush to remove the oils from the material.
Dawn dish soap for mopping floors
Lake leverages the grease-fighting power of Dawn dish soap to clean floors. Rather than mop floors with strong, chemical-based cleansers, she prefers to pour a few drops of dish soap into a bucket of warm water to mop floors and wipe down baseboards. “Dawn dish soap, honestly, is just the best cleaning product someone can buy because it’s safe on anything and everything,” she says.
Shaving cream for cleaning glass
In scouring—pardon the pun—the internet for old-school cleaning techniques, I came across what I thought might be an urban legend: cleaning glass with shaving cream. I finally decided to give it a try on my always-smudged eyeglasses. I squirted a small amount of my husband’s shaving cream onto each lens and gently rubbed in a circular motion with my finger. Then, I buffed the cream away with a microfiber cloth. Voila! Seeing (clearly) is believing!
Repurposed towels and sponges for the floor
I’m always looking for reasons to break up with paper towels. Many suggest giving old towels and sponges a second life as floor scrubbers. A damp towel wrapped around a mop or broom handle is a surprisingly easy way to clean a kitchen or bathroom floor, and then you can just toss the towel in the laundry.
Newsprint for cleaning windows
Newspapers are few and far between in the digital age, but if you do have some newsprint on hand, use it instead of paper towels to clean windows. The paper is lint-free, and the ink—at least in older newspapers—was said to help break down grease and dirt.
To do it, crumple up some newspaper, spray the glass with window cleaner—vinegar works well here—and wipe in circular motions. Switch to a fresh sheet of newsprint when it gets too wet or dirty. Be sure to avoid the frames, especially wooden ones, to avoid ink transfer. If the ink does get on the glass, wipe with a rag or microfiber cloth.
Ice cube for removing sticky residue
Products like Goo Gone do a great job of removing sticky residue left by labels and price tags. But if you don’t have a bottle on hand, try the ice-cube hack a family member recommended to me: Rub a cube over the label to wet the paper. Push it away with your fingernail (be gentle!) or with the edge of a butter knife. It’ll start to dissolve and come apart in pieces for easy removal.
This hack works best on hard surfaces like glass and plastic, but I’ve even tried it on the cover of a paperback book with success—just don’t get the pages wet!
Citrus peels as a natural air freshener
Meneses suggests saving money and skipping the expensive candles and air sprays. Instead, add lemon peels to a pot of boiling water and let the scent waft through your home. “It works better than those fake sprays at scrubbing out food smells,” she says. (Looking at you, burnt microwave popcorn.) “Plus, the whole house smells like a citrus grove.”
You can experiment with other citrus fruits, like oranges, and even add in a cinnamon stick or other fragrant spices to tweak the scent to your liking.
Outdoor air-drying for brighter, fresher laundry
Time to string up the old clothesline again. This blast-from-the-past trick is your ticket to freshly scented clothes and linens. It’ll even help you get your whites whiter.
“This is how we do it in the old country,” says Meneses. Hang clothes on the line or a clothes drying rack, but do it outdoors. “Not only will you save on energy, but the sun works like nature’s bleach [for white clothes] and is a germ killer,” she explains.
Salt for scouring cast iron
Many home chefs love cooking with a cast-iron skillet, but the cleanup? Less well loved. Meneses recommends coarse salt as a natural scouring powder. Just sprinkle some on the pan, scrub with a paper towel or cloth, and rinse clean. “It works better than soap,” she says.
Cornstarch to clean spills on soft surfaces
It can seem like a catastrophe when something spills on the rug or the couch—but not if you have some cornstarch, says Meneses. “Grab some cornstarch, sprinkle it right on the spot you want to clean as soon as possible and give it a little time to soak up the mess. Then brush it off, and the stain will be gone,” she says. It works well on clothes too.
A broom instead of vacuum for hard floors
This tip might be a hard one to swallow because there are so many great vacuums available for every type of surface. But there’s a reason old-school housekeeping relies on a broom for hard floors. Even on the lightest setting, a vacuum might spray the debris, rather than suck it up, so you’ve got more control with a broom.
Don’t have a dustpan? Grab a newspaper or an old magazine, and use it to scoop the mess into the trash.
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Sources:
- Trisha Lake, owner and CEO of TLC Cleaning; phone interview, Jan. 6, 2025
- Claudia Meneses, founder and CEO of Avanti Green Eco Cleaning; email interview, Jan. 2, 2025
