Best All-Purpose Cleaners of 2026

The basil spray is the rare cleaning product we buy for the smell and keep for the cleaning. It reads as an actual herb — cool, green, a little sharp — rather than the sweet floral fog most fresh-smelling cleaners aim for, and it lingers just long enough to make a kitchen feel reset rather than fumigated. That's the whole pitch, and it earns it.

Underneath the scent is a straightforward multi-surface cleaner. Coffee rings, fingerprints, and dust along a baseboard wipe clean in one pass and dry without streaks, and it's labeled for floors, tile, countertops, and walls, so one bottle covers most of a room. Grease is the limit: on a stovetop film it wants a second application and a minute of dwell time, where a dedicated degreaser would need one pass.

Sixteen ounces is a small bottle for a whole apartment. The scent is also strong enough that a room knows you cleaned, which we like in a kitchen and find heavy in a small bathroom, where a lighter hand on the trigger helps. It's the pick for anyone who wants the ritual of cleaning to smell like something.

The nozzle is the idea here. Mr. Clean's Clean Freak arrives as a starter bottle with a power nozzle plus three refills, and the trigger does two things: a continuous mist that covers a wide patch of counter in one sweep, and a single spray for a spot. That sounds like a small feature until you've cleaned a backsplash with a trigger that sputters.

The mist is built to activate on contact, and it earns its keep on kitchen grease: stovetops, range hoods, backsplashes, shower tile. Mr. Clean claims three times the cleaning power of a leading bleach all-purpose spray on kitchen grease, which is the label's number rather than ours. Our measure is simpler — on a film of cooking oil it lifted with a wipe instead of a scrub, and the surface didn't need a second pass.

Glass was the surprise. A grease-focused spray is not where we look for a clean mirror, but this one left a glass stovetop and a bathroom mirror clear with a dry cloth and nothing else. The lemon zest is bright without being candy, and it fades faster than the scent on most sprays here, which we count as a plus in a room where food is prepared.

It's a spray-and-wipe product, so it doesn't replace a bucket cleaner for floors, and the bundle is the biggest outlay of any spray in this group. What you're paying for is the nozzle and the reach: big, greasy surfaces, done quickly, with refills that snap onto the same trigger in seconds.

Eighty gallons from one jug is the number that made us try it, and the number that keeps it in the basement. CloroxPro's Pine-Sol is a 2X concentrate: 80 fluid ounces of Original Pine that dilutes into up to 80 gallons of cleaning solution, and it kills 99.9% of germs even when diluted, so the bucket you mix for the kitchen floor is also disinfecting. No other concentrate here states a yield anywhere near it.

It's a workhorse on everything a bucket reaches. Floors, tubs, toilets, the mop itself: mixed for mopping, it takes up grease, grime, dirt, and the allergens a floor collects, and it deodorizes while it works. We use it neat on a toilet rim and diluted on tile, and the jug keeps going long after the sprays in the cabinet have run out.

Two things to know before you buy. It needs mixing, so it's not the bottle you grab for a spot, and the 2X formula punishes a careless pour — measure into the bucket rather than guessing. Get that right and the cost per bucket is the lowest here by a wide margin, which is the whole reason to keep a jug instead of a spray.

Bleach decides where this bottle lives. CloroxPro's Clean-Up is a one-step cleaner, sanitizer, and disinfectant with bleach in it, which makes it the wrong tool for a fast counter wipe and the right one for the jobs nothing else touches: shower mildew, tub staining, sink rims, and the grout between tiles.

We take it into the bathroom with the fan on. Sprayed along a shower wall, it lifted mildew staining without scrubbing, which is the result that keeps a bleach cleaner in the house, and there's a corrosion inhibitor in the formula to protect stainless steel, so fixtures and appliance fronts are fair game. It kills 99.9% of bacteria and viruses, including the COVID-19 virus, in 30 seconds.

The 128-ounce refill is where the value sits: one bottle tops up a sprayer several times over instead of buying a new ready-to-use bottle each round, which keeps the cost per job low for something you only reach for on the worst messes. It also removes allergens, which is the argument for using it on a bedroom or basement wall rather than just the bathroom.

Where it doesn't apply is everyday counters and anything you'd worry about spotting. This is a job cleaner that sits next to the Pine-Sol rather than replacing it, and between the two of them every floor, tub, and toilet in the house is handled.

If the Lysol is the bottle for germ season, this is its opposite number: no bleach, no chlorine, no petroleum solvents, no added alcohols, parabens, SLS, or SLES. It's the spray we hand someone who wants one bottle for counters, tables, and tile and doesn't want to open a window afterward.

It isn't a token formula. Better Life's spray cuts grease and grime on countertops, appliances, walls, floors, bathroom sinks, and showers, and it's mild enough for upholstery. On a greasy stovetop it takes a little more wiping than a dedicated degreaser, which is the trade for a formula that doesn't sting your eyes while you use it.

The currant and citrus is light, closer to a citrus peel than a candle, and it fades within minutes. That's the point of the bottle: you can wipe a high chair, the table, and the counter behind it without a rinse-and-air routine, which is why it stays on our counter instead of under the sink.

What keeps it in the rotation is the combination: enough muscle for a greasy stovetop, mild enough that we don't think about the air in the room. A house with small children, a cat, or a sensitive nose will get more use out of it than out of a disinfecting spray, because it's the bottle you don't hesitate to grab.

Simple Green asks you to do something most of the sprays here don't: mix. The three 32-ounce bottles are a concentrate, full strength for heavy messes and diluted for daily cleaning, and a bottle stretches so far that the cost per cleaning lands well below the ready-to-use sprays in this group.

It's the most versatile formula here and the least precious about where it goes: counters, carpet, floors, fabric, equipment, vehicles. It's pH neutral and gentle enough that it doesn't irritate skin, and it can run through a carpet cleaner, a floor scrubber, or a pressure washer, which is territory a spray bottle can't follow it into.

The one thing to learn is strength. At full strength it can leave a pale green cast on light surfaces, so we dilute for everything but the worst grease and wipe with a damp cloth afterward. Treated that way it's the bottle for a garage, a carpet, or a range hood, and the prettier sprays are for the kitchen counter. The original scent is distinctive enough that it's worth deciding whether you like it before committing to three bottles of it.

Finished wood floors are why this jug is in the cabinet. Mr. Clean labels this one safe for finished wood when diluted, and that's the sentence that sold us, because a hardwood floor is where a general cleaner can do real damage if you get it wrong.

Day to day it's a 2X concentrate against Mr. Clean Original, and it does what a bucket cleaner should: takes dirt, grease, and grime off floors, then keeps going on countertops and toilets. The Meadows & Rain scent is soft and slightly green, noticeable while you work and gone by the time the floor dries, which is exactly what we want from something used by the bucket.

The one skill it demands is restraint. Overpour and the floor dries soapy, and you're back with a rinse; measured properly, a 41-ounce jug covers a lot of square footage and costs very little per bucket. That measuring habit is the difference between a bottle that lasts months and one that lasts weeks.

It's the least dramatic cleaner here, and that's the appeal: a soft scent, a bucket that doesn't need ventilating, and no room in the house that makes us nervous. Pair it with a disinfecting spray for the sinks and the bathroom and the mopping is handled for the better part of a year.

The smell is the first thing anyone notices about Fabuloso, and it's the reason to buy it: spring fresh, fruity with a floral edge, filling the room while you mop. Two 56-ounce bottles of the 2X concentrate is a lot of mopping for the money.

It goes on nearly every hard surface in the house, from floors, sinks, toilets, tubs, and showers to appliances, counters, walls, doorknobs, furniture, and sealed wood. It's a bleach alternative, so it cleans without the bleach smell, and it takes everyday dirt and grease without much effort.

What it isn't is a heavy degreaser. On a greasy stovetop or a range hood we still reach for a spray, and there's no disinfecting claim attached to it: this is clean and fresh-smelling, not germ kill.

Sealed wood is the line on the label, so keep it off unsealed butcher block and anything waxed. A small bathroom also doesn't need a full-bucket mix, since the scent is going to fill the room whether you pour heavily or not.

Per bucket it's the least expensive cleaner here, and the 2X formula means you're not remixing every week. Start with a lighter pour than you think you need, and buy a scent you can live with, because it's the one part of the job that stays with you after the mop goes back in the closet.