ABSTRACT
Household cleaners are generally classifi ed as either all-purpose or specialty cleaners. The difference lies in how strongly focused the cleaner’s action is against a specifi c soil. All-purpose cleaners are essentially what their name indicates-for all soils on all surfaces. In fact, all-purpose cleaners usually emphasize their ability to clean grease, demonstrating cleaning greasy messes in advertising or showing grease-cleaning tests in the patent or patent application. There are other household soils-dust, some particulates, dried-on food-that can be largely cleaned with water. Grease, being a hydrophobic soil, tends to be hard for water to remove and so is most affected by the addition of the surfactants and other cleaning ingredients. However, there are other household soils
that are not grease based-hard water buildup (limescale), soap scum, baked-on food-that are also challenging to clean. Specialty cleaners are usually closely targeted at the chemistry of the specifi c soil. Specialty cleaners are therefore also somewhat limited in their scope of use, but should justify their worth by being powerful against their chosen soil.
