How to Declutter Your Cleaning Supplies Without Getting Rid of the Essentials

Trying to keep your house clean can be a challenge—so it's easy to be tempted to buy any product that purports to make things easier. Whether it’s that pink stuff you saw on TikTok, a bargain cleaner you found on the clearance rack, or that stainless steel cleaner that left streaks on your stove, most of us have at least one or two products we’ve tried a few times and never used again. While they're meant to help us clean, these products can easily pile up and lead to extra clutter. So, here’s how to declutter your cleaning supplies down to only the items you’ll actually use.

Gather Cleaning Products From Every Area of Your Home

Kris Hargrove, professional organizer and founder of Organized by Kris, says the first step is to gather all your cleaning supplies from different parts of your home into one location. “This includes not only products, but also towels, dusters, sponges, and anything else you use to clean," she says. "The second step is to sort and categorize the cleaning supplies by type, such as multi-purpose cleaners, floor cleaners, disinfectants, and glass cleaners.”

Evaluate Your Cleaning Habits

While you might keep some cleaning products in your bathroom or laundry room, most of us store the majority under the sink or in another area of the kitchen. So, evaluate what’s going on there. Brenda Prinzavalli, Organizing Strategist, tells me, “An easy way to determine which cleaning supplies you actually use is to peer into your cleaning supply storage area and see which supplies are in the front and which ones get pushed to the back," she says. "By default, you can assume the ones you use the most are front and center.”

The sprays and solutions you don’t use often will likely end up pushed to the back. While there might be one or two items you want to keep, like that brass cleaner for your powder room faucets, there are probably quite a few products that should be tossed out.

Combine Duplicates

Do you have four bottles of the same product—each with only one or two uses left? This is a recipe for unnecessary clutter. So, combine them into one bottle if you can. “If that’s not possible, consider creating a backstock area for the duplicate cleaners and supplies, and only keep what you're currently using accessible,” says Hargrove.

Opt for Multipurpose Products

If you want to truly minimize—you can always use a multipurpose cleaning spray that works for countertops, bathrooms, glass, stone, and other surfaces.

Just keep in mind that while most multipurpose sprays are good for cleaning, they don’t always disinfect. So, you may need a separate disinfectant for cleaning up after preparing chicken or if your bathroom tub gets a little moldy, for example. Luckily, most disinfecting products work on multiple surfaces, so a cleaner and a disinfectant are really all you need.

It’s also a good idea to have multipurpose cleaning tools, such as melamine sponges, on hand. “They can be used to clean multiple surfaces such as walls, countertops, bathtubs, faucets, and remove stains from mugs and even clothes,” explains Katie Dills, brand president of The Cleaning Authority.

Go With a Cleaning Concentrate

If you really want to minimize the number and volume of products you use, a cleaning concentrate can be a game-changer. Although each brand varies slightly, the general idea is to mix different ratios of the product and water depending on the surface you’re cleaning. Just remember that you may need multiple bottles, but the advantage is that you only need to buy one product.

Evaluate Your Tools

Larger items like mops, buckets, and even vacuums can also create unnecessary clutter. If that duster doesn’t work or that string mop has seen better days, it’s okay to let things go.