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The ingredients in your cleaning products fall into several different categories, added to provide different characteristics and cleaning functions. Each product formula is a careful balance of various ingredients that will work best for what you are trying to clean.
For more information about the specific ingredients in a cleaning product, visit the manufacturer's website or look for the product in SmartLabel…
Cleaning products play an essential role in daily life. They can remove dirt and stains from our clothes, dried on food from our dishes, and even germs from our hands! Let’s learn more about the chemistry that makes this happen.
What Is Cleaning?
Cleaning is the process of taking something dirty—like your kitchen counter—and removing dirt, grease, and grime found on it. When we clean, we leave things better than they were when we found them. Cleaning helps…
No matter the type of product you are using (soap or detergent), good cleaning takes a lot of energy. Three different kinds to be exact:
Chemical energy, provided by the soap or detergent
Mechanical energy, provided by a machine or by hand
Thermal energy, provided by heating water Let’s look at how all these elements work together.
Assume we have a great, big, oily, greasy stain on one of our favorite shirts. Water alone is not enough to remove the stain…
What is soap and how does it work?
The sudsy stuff we use every day of our lives is a mystery to most of us. But behind our cleaning products is an array of scientific data and information. This science and chemistry helps to ensure our products work and are safe for you and your family to use. The resources below will walk through what it means to be clean and how the cleaning process works. For more information and activities, we encourage you to check out ExplorationClean.…
If you or your child have allergies or asthma, you already know that many things can bring on, or "trigger," an asthma flare or episode. Some things that trigger asthma attacks are called allergens. Some people get symptoms from only one allergen - like dust mites. For other people, more than one kind of allergen can trigger an episode.
Tobacco smoke is an asthma trigger. Avoid smoking in a home where a person with asthma lives.
The…
What is Monkeypox?
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), monkeypox is a viral disease in the same family of viruses as the one that causes smallpox, although milder. It can be spread through close contact with a person with monkeypox or touching objects, fabrics, and surfaces that have been used by someone with monkeypox. There is currently an outbreak that has reached several countries and most U.S. states, which is being closely monitored by public…
Experts agree that frequent handwashing is one of the first lines of defense against many illnesses. But no matter how many times you wash your hands, there are always some sneaky little germs lurking around to hitch a ride on your skin. They loiter on shopping cart handles, linger on light switches, lurk about the phone and even hang around on the remote controls. That's why disinfectants and disinfecting cleaners can be a helpful option…
Understand the language of soaps and detergents.
ALCOHOL: A class of organic compounds containing one or more hydroxyl groups. The alcohols used in light duty and liquid laundry detergents are isopropanol or ethanol (ethyl alcohol). These alcohols are used at low levels in liquid detergent formulations to control viscosity, to act as a solvent for other ingredients, and to provide resistance to low and freezing temperatures encountered in shipping, warehousing, and use. &…
Cleaning is much more than just a common chore. It is a way we show we care for ourselves and one another, not only for our physical health but also our mental health.
Nearly 9 in 10 Americans (87%) feel their best, both mentally and physically, when they have a clean home yet, 21% of Americans find cleaning tasks overwhelming. Creating regular cleaning routines and finding ways to break down responsibilities can help make cleaning more manageable. Check out our resources below for…
Surfactants (yellow) cause water to lose surface tension, which is what keeps water separate from other materials
Have you ever seen a bead of water sitting on a surface? This is because water has a property called surface tension. This tension causes water to form a bead on the surface of things like glass or fabric. You can see surface tension at work by placing a drop of water onto a counter top. The drop will hold its shape and will not spread.
In order to clean the dirt on our …