Best cleaning products February 2013
Guide to the best cleaning products
Discover the best products for cleaning your home from top to bottom. We've gathered together the best Which? Best Buy cleaners that excelled in our rigorous tests, to help you build your ultimate spring cleaning shopping list.
We've tested a range of cleaning brands to find the best products for keeping your home clean, both for those daily tasks and for emergency stains.
Discover which is the best washing-up liquid and the best dishwasher tablet brand, the best stain removers and drain unblockers as well as the best oven cleaners and multi-surface cleaners.
Best cleaning products
Our reviews and ratings are impartial and here at Which? we test our products in the same way you would use them at home, meaning our stain removers have to tackle food and drink, grease and oil, while our washing-up liquid testers scrubbed dishes smeared with a variety of foodstuffs.
We tested well-known brands such as Fairy, Vanish, Finish, Domestos and Mr Muscle, but in some cases shops' own-brands not only beat them in tests but topped the results, meaning you may be able to get a better cleaning result for less money than the big brand version.
The table below reveals Best Buy cleaning products you can really rely on. Which? members can log-in to unlock the score table. If you're not a member, discover the benefits of getting full access for one month.
| Which? Best Buy cleaning products shopping list | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Winner | Score | Verdict |
| Dishwasher tablets |  | | 'They're better at leaving your dishes brighter and shinier than any other detergent, good at cleaning most types of foods, and exceptional at tricky ones such as egg yolk and starch stains.' |
| Mechanical drain unblocker | | | 'It's easy to use, doesn’t require much effort to push down the plunger, and because it uses water pressure it doesn’t run out after a few uses.' |
| Chemical drain unblocker | | | 'The crystals are specifically for kitchen blockages and cleared them in less 10 minutes – more quickly and effectively than any other chemical unblocker we tested.' |
| Multi-surface cleaner | | | 'It tackled spills, stains and surfaces with ease. It’s excellent at cleaning tea, curry, hard water marks and soap scum, and was good on other spills.' |
| Stain remover - pre-soak | | | 'Its instructions were clear and our lab testers found it easy to use.' |
| Fabric stain remover | | | 'It scored just below its rival for grease stain removal in our tests. But it scored a full five stars for make-up stains, compared to our other Best Buys' four stars.' |
| Carpet stain remover | | | 'Generally a strong all-round stain remover, it only dipped below four stars on grease stains, for which it got a three-star rating.' |
| Oven cleaner | | | 'This delivered the best cleaning performance overall, giving great results on our baking sheet, wire rack and oven door. It scored highly for ease of use, too.' |
| Washing-up liquid | | | 'One 2ml squirt can wash 47 plates, which means you can wash 11,750 plates per bottle – more than any other washing-up liquid in our test.' |
| Laundry detergent | | | 'This detergent delivers all-round excellent stain removal power at a really low price and keeps whites brilliantly white.' |