We independently review everything we recommend. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more›
We've conducted all-new tests in search of the best overall cleaner and the best cleaner plus disinfectant. Cotton Fabric For Protective Garments
After researching 33 options and spending several weeks cleaning grease splatters, grubby fingerprints, and sticky cereal milk with eight cleaning sprays, we concluded that our favorite is Biokleen Spray & Wipe All Purpose Cleaner.
This almost scent-free spray wipes cleanly and has a third-party health and environmental-health certification. It outperformed all other similarly certified cleaners we tested.
This bleach-based cleaner disinfects surfaces while performing everyday cleaning tasks just as well as our top pick, but it emits unpleasant fumes.
Diluted in water, bleach is the key ingredient to a simple but effective homemade disinfectant, but the fumes are even harsher than those of our also-great Clorox spray cleaner.
This almost scent-free spray wipes cleanly and has a third-party health and environmental-health certification. It outperformed all other similarly certified cleaners we tested.
Biokleen Spray & Wipe All Purpose Cleaner sprays evenly and swiftly wipes up dinner crumbs and desk dust with no streaks, ridding tables, counters, and bathrooms of messes quickly and easily. This cleaner has a higher up-front cost than the competition, but using its concentrated refill bottle lowers the cost to pennies per ounce. Biokleen’s spray cleaner has a third-party certification from the Environmental Protection Agency, an independent-test certification that backs up its claims of being a less harsh alternative to many other cleaners.
This bleach-based cleaner disinfects surfaces while performing everyday cleaning tasks just as well as our top pick, but it emits unpleasant fumes.
Some situations, such as a norovirus breakout in the home or potential salmonella contamination in the kitchen, call for a dose of extermination along with your normal cleaning routine. Clorox Clean-Up Cleaner + Bleach kills pathogens on hard surfaces in most kitchens and bathrooms, including sinks, faucets, toilets, tile, and synthetic countertops. It cleared up our messes with the same streak-free ease as Biokleen’s cleaner did, but its bleach odor was noticeably strong. To ensure the elimination of pathogens, this cleaner needs to sit for 30 seconds before you wipe it up; such a delay is a necessary step for all disinfectants, called dwell time, and the length can vary across cleaning products and brands.
Diluted in water, bleach is the key ingredient to a simple but effective homemade disinfectant, but the fumes are even harsher than those of our also-great Clorox spray cleaner.
A blend of regular household bleach and water can also disinfect many hard surfaces, but the ratio of water to bleach that you should use for a homemade mix can differ between brands. Be sure to read the instructions on your bottle carefully.
For our non-disinfectant pick, we evaluated widely available cleaners bearing at least one of three third-party certifications that test for health and environmental hazards: the EPA’s Safer Choice, UL’s Ecologo, and Green Seal. Any company can pay to have tests performed on its product to earn a certification, but these entities conduct the testing independently.
Each certification has different requirements, with several overlaps. For example, all three programs test for carcinogens, but only the EPA’s Safer Choice tests for chemicals on its own list of hazardous air pollutants. We’ve broken down common concerns in the infographic below so that you can easily check what your current cleaner is certified for if you spot one or more of these logos on the bottle, but what follows is not an exhaustive list of what each certification tests for; you can see each certification’s full testing specs by clicking the respective links above.
We scoured Amazon, The Home Depot, Target, and Walmart for all-purpose cleaner sprays that had high marks from buyers and were widely available. After selecting 33 contenders and cross-referencing each for at least one certification, we narrowed our final testing list to just eight cleaners. (Actually nine, but we eliminated one after two failed shipping attempts.)
Once we had the finalists in hand and began cleaning, we realized that fragrance—or more specifically, the lack of one—played a big role for us. “The smell of clean is nothing,” said Steve Ashkin, who heads up the sustainability committee for ISSA, the leading trade association for the cleaning industry, where he advises many large cleaning corporations on environmental responsibility.
We understand that for many people the smell of lemon verbena or lavender in their cleaner becomes associated with their idea of cleanliness, and we’re not here to judge personal preference. But additional sensory input can mask the smell of whatever you’re trying to clean. Scents can also affect air quality and trigger asthma, and some locations have established workplace requirements concerning odors, including those found in cleaners. So we decided to rule out cleaners with a strong scent. We also quickly realized that we preferred transparent spray cleaners, as it’s important to clearly see the mess you’re tackling.
For our cleaner-plus-disinfectant pick, we relied on work that senior staff writer Tim Heffernan did for the version of this guide that we published during the pandemic, for which he narrowed down a wide selection of cleaners that appeared on the EPA’s List N as certified to kill the virus that causes COVID-19.
Of those former picks, only one was a true all-purpose cleaner in the sense that it’s a spray for use on multiple types of hard surfaces: Clorox Clean-Up Cleaner + Bleach. We tested it against our non-disinfectant cleaners in basic cleaning prowess and found that it performed similarly well to the Biokleen cleaner, only with added fumes—and, while not visible to the naked eye, total pathogen annihilation.
Once we knew that each of our finalists had at least one third-party certification, we prioritized the cleaning experience over the presence of multiple certifications. I spent several weeks using our eight spray cleaners to wipe up dust, dirt, and kitchen detritus on laminate, porcelain, and granite surfaces in the office and at home. I also let sriracha dry on a glass surface for maximum visibility as we cleaned, and I let toothpaste harden on my porcelain sink. Once the Biokleen cleaner began to outperform the rest, I left a bottle in the Wirecutter office kitchen so that co-workers could try it on their lunchtime spills.
I worked with microfiber cloths, paper towels, and reusable sponges to see how each cleaner performed with different tools. For all appropriate surfaces, I confirmed whether the Clorox disinfectant option was cleaning just as well on the visible level.
Most of these spray cleaners performed decently on the most basic tasks of distributing liquid evenly and catching messes, but several brands’ cleaners earned disqualification by dripping down the nozzle and bottle while we sprayed or by dribbling afterward. Some cleaners left significant streaks.
This almost scent-free spray wipes cleanly and has a third-party health and environmental-health certification. It outperformed all other similarly certified cleaners we tested.
Biokleen Spray & Wipe All Purpose Cleaner quickly rose to the top in our testing and has the EPA’s Safer Choice certification.
It cleans exceptionally well. Over the course of several weeks, Biokleen’s cleaner became my go-to spray for dust that collected on desks throughout our Long Island City, New York, office and on my granite counter and wooden dining table by the end of each day. The spray caught crumbs, dried gunk, and sticky messes without leaving streaks or bubbles. I laid this cleaner on both thick and faintly; it left no residue either way. It did equally well on bathroom porcelain, and whether I wiped with microfiber, paper towels, or a reusable sponge, its performance remained consistent.
A generous refill bottle is available. Refillable products reduce both cost and packaging waste. You can buy the Biokleen sprayer and refill bottle together or separately. The refill comes in a 32-, 64- or 128-ounce jug, and combining just an ounce with water creates another full gallon of cleaner. For a little less than $25, you get the gallon of concentrate bundled with the cleaner, but some retailers sell the 32-ounce spray bottle alone for about $6 if you want to try it out before committing.
It’s not quite unscented. We initially thought that Biokleen’s cleaner was fragrance-free, since it had no discernable smell, but we contacted the company after noticing “citrus essence” listed on the bottle. While that ingredient was added for smell, the product “has a mild citrus scent,” said Jon Bellante, vice president of consumer marketing at PurposeBuilt Brands, which owns Biokleen. By filtering Amazon reviews for the word “scent,” we found that we aren’t the only ones who believed BioKleen to be unscented. Stronger noses might pick up a slight whiff of citrus.
The bottle offers only one spray function. When you pull the spray trigger, the liquid poofs out in an evenly distributed cloud. Though I liked its consistency, this spray pattern might not work as well in situations when you’re targeting a concentrated mess.
This bleach-based cleaner disinfects surfaces while performing everyday cleaning tasks just as well as our top pick, but it emits unpleasant fumes.
Clorox Clean-Up Cleaner + Bleach is guaranteed by the EPA to kill pathogens, but its fumes are unpleasant to work with, especially for everyday cleaning. To ensure proper disinfection, you need to leave this cleaner on a surface for 30 seconds before wiping it off.
In addition to annihilating viruses, this Clorox cleaner eliminated messes just as well as the Biokleen cleaner did on hard surfaces such as my kitchen counters, and it quickly did away with toothpaste, dirt, and sink mold on my bathroom porcelain. Its ability to eradicate germs makes it ideal for cleaning the exterior of toilets. Two other disinfectants with different delivery methods, Clorox Disinfecting Wipes and Lysol Disinfectant Spray, also work well for that task, but the dwell time for each is much longer—about four and 10 minutes, respectively.
Be careful where you use it. Any bleach-based spray similar to Clorox Clean-Up Cleaner + Bleach is for use only on hard surfaces, not wood, so I couldn’t use it to clean my dining room table. It can feel harsh on skin, too, and it produces fumes that can irritate mucous membranes; while cleaning with it, take basic precautions such as ventilating the room and wearing gloves. Never mix it with any other sort of cleaner.
The bottle can be difficult to deal with. I had a bit of trouble getting the spray up and running; it dripped during the first pump, which caused the bleach mix to run onto my gloved hands.
Diluted in water, bleach is the key ingredient to a simple but effective homemade disinfectant, but the fumes are even harsher than those of our also-great Clorox spray cleaner.
You can easily make your own disinfectant by mixing bleach and water, but keep the following advice in mind.
Store the mixture safely. Bleach degrades fairly rapidly once taken from its original storage container, becoming less effective with each passing day. Storing your DIY cleaner’s container away from light can prolong its useful lifespan.
It’s important to follow safety instructions. Before you begin mixing up any bleach solutions, especially if you’re new to it, be sure to thoroughly read the entire warning label on the bottle of bleach and observe safety instructions (PDF) at all times. And never, ever mix bleach with ammonia or anything containing ammonia (such as many window cleaners), or with anything acidic (such as white vinegar and many lime-scale or rust removers, including CLR and Bar Keepers Friend). Doing either will produce highly dangerous and even deadly gases. A 2019 study found that adding a common citrus compound to bleach creates harmful airborne particles. Keep your bleach and water combination to just those two things.
For a less harsh but less effective DIY disinfectant cleaner, you can use vinegar and water in a spray bottle. An oft-repeated stat claims that acetic acid, the active ingredient in vinegar, can kill 82% of molds, but we haven’t been able to find the source of that data. Instead, we discovered that acetic acid has been recorded as getting rid of molds that live on fruit, the bacteria that cause tuberculosis and leprosy, SARS-CoV-2, and a species of yeast that lives on the human body.
Another study found that it couldn’t kill Aspergillus fumigatus, one of the most common causes of fungal allergies and infections, so we wouldn’t recommend vinegar as a surefire annihilator of everything that could make you sick. But it’s what we like to turn to when we encounter areas that need a little more oomph than plain soap and water. It gets rid of hard-water stains and other mineral buildups, and we’ve recommended it to clean all sorts of things, from microwaves to humidifiers.
Seventh Generation All Purpose Cleaner is popular with shoppers and has two third-party certifications, the EPA’s Safer Choice and UL’s Ecologo. But the unscented version doesn’t come with refills, and in our tests it left noticeable streaks and bubbles after each wipe on all the surfaces we tested on.
We liked Clorox Free & Clear Multi-Surface Spray Cleaner, but Biokleen’s cleaner pushed it out of the top spot because we preferred the cleaning experience and better refill options of the Biokleen option.
If Mrs. Meyer’s Multi-Surface Everyday Cleaner is your go-to because you love one of its many scents, we’re not here to talk you out of it, despite our own opinions regarding fragrance. The brand has an Ecologo seal, and the cleaner performed well in our tests, but all Mrs. Meyer’s all-purpose spray cleaners are heavily scented, which prompted us to eliminate the brand from contention. Ditto for ECOS All Purpose Cleaner, which had an orange scent that we found cloying; we didn’t try its parsley alternative, but we did see several Amazon reviews praising its scent.
Clorox Green Works All-Purpose Cleaner and Clorox EcoClean Disinfecting Cleaner both have a Safer Choice certification, and the Green Works version also has an Ecologo seal. Although we were able to order them through Amazon, Clorox let us know that both are aimed at professionals, and so they might fall out of commercial availability or come only in bulk. The Green Works cleaner had a soapy scent, but it was our favorite of all the scented cleaners that we tested.
Out of our group of finalists, Blueland Multi-Surface Cleaner was the easiest for us to dismiss. The formula comes in a concentrated, dissolvable tablet that you add to water, but in our tests it took 45 minutes to dissolve. In addition, the nozzle leaked and distributed the spray unevenly.
We were excited to test Attitude All Purpose Cleaner, but it never arrived after our first attempt at ordering it. When we tried a second time, we were told it would take two weeks, which disqualified it for us.
A burgeoning category of disinfecting sprays carries labeling declaring them “family-friendly,” “plant-based,” “natural,” “safe,” or “environmentally friendly,” among many other buzzwords. Without specific, clear information and backup, however, these claims might just be greenwashing, so we’re carefully looking into this new field.
We got a head start with the Clorox Disinfecting Multi-Purpose Spray Cleaning System. We like that the cleaner comes with easily replaceable, insertable refill capsules. But we don’t like the extra steps involved in the disinfection process—in order for the surface to be food-safe, you have to rinse this spray off with water after its dwell time of several minutes.
We also began experimenting with Clorox Free & Clear Disinfecting and Sanitizing Mist, which uses citric acid as the active disinfecting ingredient. We tested it on plastic, wood, and my couch, since it’s meant to be safe for fabrics. The plastic surface took about two minutes to dry (the minimum time necessary for disinfection), while the wood and the fabric each took about four minutes. The hard surfaces felt slightly sticky after five minutes, so we’ll likely go over them with another all-purpose spray cleaner afterward when we resume testing for this guide. The fabric on the couch wrinkled slightly, but I was able to smooth it out with my hands.
Seventh Generation Disinfectant Spray claims to kill germs with botanicals. We plan to test it, and we are continuing to monitor any purportedly environmentally friendly products and new third-party certifications.
This article was edited by Joshua Lyon and Harry Sawyers.
Steve Ashkin, cleaning consultant, Zoom interview, April 13, 2023
Mary Gagliardi, Clorox spokesperson, Zoom interview, May 3, 2023
Ellen Airhart is an associate writer at Wirecutter, where she covers cleaning and emergency preparedness. Please email her with your biggest messes and most anxious thoughts.
Alarm over coronavirus has a lot of people scrubbing and sanitizing their phones and other gadgets. This is largely unnecessary.
Is The Pink Stuff really the miracle cleaner TikTok creators say it is? To find out, we tested it around our homes.
Anything used as frequently as a countertop is going to need regular cleaning. This is the best way to do it.
These are 90(ish) of our favorite Wirecutter picks to help you tackle a deep clean of your new home.
3/1 Twill 128*60/20a*16a Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions. Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time).