9 Household Uses for Clorox Bleach

I initially thought about entitling this blog post How to Have Two Kids, Two Dogs, a Messy Husband, and White Duvet Covers, but my household uses for Clorox go far beyond my bed covers! I have found that nothing quite compares to the whitening and dirt-fighting power of Clorox® Regular-Bleach. Plus it disinfects to kill 99.9% of germs and bacteria, which is kinda awesome. Germs be gone! Let’s explore 9 household uses for Clorox.

1. Keep Duvets & Sheets White and Bright

The most commonly known use for bleach is in the laundry room. I prefer to use Clorox over bargain bleach because 1 cup of Clorox® Regular-Bleach whitens two times as much as bargain bleach and I like my duvets to be their whitest!

To whiten my duvet covers and bed sheets, I set my washer to the hottest water setting and soak them in a solution of 1 cup Clorox® Regular-Bleach for my 40 gallon washer filled half way (20 gallons). I make sure the duvet is fully submerged and allow it to soak for 5 minutes. Then I wash the duvet in hot water, using detergent and 1/2 cup Clorox® Regular-Bleach. If your laundry machine doesn’t have a bleach dispenser, be sure to add water and bleach to the washer before you add your items. This will help you achieve uniform whitening.

2. Help Flowers Last Longer

One of the easiest ways to add cheer to any room is with a bouquet of fresh flowers. I love picking up seasonal blooms from the grocery store and adding small vases around the home. You are supposed to freshen your vase water daily, but seriously who has time for that? A trick that works well to help your blooms last longer is to add 1/4 teaspoon bleach for each quart of vase water. As a bonus, this will also cut down on any gross stuff from growing inside your vase.

3. Whiten Tile Grout

The grout in our master bathroom always dulls around the toilet and shower area. I blame my husband for this. To whiten the grout I mix 3 parts bleach and 7 parts water in a plastic spray bottle designed for cleaning. I spray the grout and allow it to penetrate for a few minutes before scrubbing it with an old toothbrush or bristle brush. I then rinse it with fresh water and dry with a rag. Ta da! I have grout that looks brand new. I have also heard that the Clorox® Bleach Pen Gel works great on grout lines, but I haven’t tried that method yet.

4. Remove Mold & Mildew

It always amazes me that the place I go to get clean is often one of the most disgusting places in the entire house! It’s embarrassing to admit but our shower floor turns pink and black between cleanings, and I often feel like I need shower shoes to enter. To remove that weird pink film, I use the same method as outlined above for whitening tile grout. I spray the gunk, allow it to penetrate, scrub it off, and then rinse it clean.

5. Clean Toilets

Nothing is more disgusting in a home than a dirty toilet! Even if my entire home is a wreck, I am mortified when the toilets are gross. To keep the toilets clean, I pour 3/4 cup of Clorox® Regular-Bleach into the bowl and brush it with a toilet brush. I allow the bleach to stand for 10 minutes before flushing. This method works great on hard water stains around the bowl as well.

6. Remove Stains from White Clothing

I love to wear white in the summer, but I inevitably spill something on myself during the day. To get stains out of my whites I wash them on the highest setting using 1/2 cup of bleach. To learn how to remove specific stains, be sure to check out Clorox’s tips for removing specific stains.

7. Sanitize Plastic Toys

I swear that we have enough legos in our house to build a summer home! My boys LOVE lego sets and over the years we have acquired a king’s ransom worth of these suckers. All of those nooks and crannies in the legos, and their germ harboring potential admittedly creep me out during bouts of illness in our family. To clean the legos, I place 1/2 cup of Clorox in 1 gallon of warm water and allow them to soak for 5 minutes. I strain the legos in a large colander, rinse them under water, and then run them through a salad spinner to remove excess water. I allow the legos to dry completely in the colander before returning to the toy bin.

8. Disinfect Butcher Block Cutting Boards

I prefer using wood cutting boards to plastic but worry about the porous nature of wood. To sanitize wood cutting boards, use a diluted solution of 1 tablespoon of Clorox® Regular-Bleach per 1/2 gallon of water. After cleaning the board with dish soap, apply the bleach solution and allow it to stand 2 minutes. Rinse your board off and allow to dry.

9. Design Custom Clothing

Did you know that bleach works as a great crafting medium on dark colored cotton clothing? You can see how to stamp a t-shirt using bleach in this post I did all the way back in 2009! I recommend buying second hand clothing for this project or using an item of clothing that does not hold much value to you. This is particularly fun to do with black clothing because the bleach will create a pink design. Who doesn’t love black and pink? My husband made this shirt for me by dipping stamps in bleach and holding it on the material until it dried. He then washed the shirt as normal. Using bleach in this way will indeed weaken the fabric in the bleached areas, but for a fun and inexpensive second-hand t-shirt it makes a great gift!

How about you? Do you have any tried and true household uses for Clorox bleach? If so, I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Clorox Bleach. All thoughts, opinions and stories represented in this post are my own.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Clorox. All thoughts, opinions and stories represented in this post are my own.

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