Wood Cleaners to Avoid for Your Wood Flooring

Most people don’t know that generic over-the-counter cleaners can ruin their beautiful hardwood floors! Many brands and products claim to restore your floors, bring back the shine, and breathe life into the wood. However, that is not the reality; these products leave residue, dullness, and stickiness behind on your once gorgeous floors. Let’s take a look at how to avoid this, and specifically, what wood cleaners you should avoid!

1. Rejuvenate Floor Cleaner

Thousands of unhappy customers leave reviews saying Rejuvenate ruined their floors! But why? Rejuvenate products, although advertised as a floor cleaner and shiner, leave your floors with a waxy coat that builds over time. This waxiness is due to its acrylic base that may initially make your floors shine (very temporarily), but it quickly dulls and leaves your hardwood feeling sticky. Yikes!

2. Murphy’s Oil Soap

Although slightly different from acrylic cleaners, Murphy’s Oil Soap also leaves a thick residue on your floors. When you clean with Murphy’s, the solution evaporates but leaves the sticky oil behind. Over time this builds up and creates a dull, waxy residue similar to that of an acrylic cleaner. In addition, the residue acts as a dirt magnet, trapping contaminants in your floors. To learn more about Murphy’s Oil Soap and its damages, check out our blog!

3. Pine-Sol 

Like the former two products, Pine-Sol can damage your floors after extended use. In addition, the solution can destroy the finish on your hardwood and leave buildup. Therefore, this is another wood cleaner to avoid, as it is not as wonderful as its producers promise it is.

4. Orange Glo Hardwood Cleaner

Orange Glo is made from the naturally occurring oils in orange peels. While it may leave your home smelling fresh, the floors will not feel like it! This oil will stay behind on your hardwood after you have ‘cleaned’ them with Orange Glo. This is yet another product that claims to revive your floors, but in reality, it only makes them worse. Again, while shine may occur, it is only temporary and will quickly fade your hardwood.

5. Quick-Shine Floor Care

Similar to Rejuvenate, Quick-Shine is an acrylic-based floor shine that provides a temporary glow but quickly dulls and leaves grime behind. Quick-Shine is precisely that– a quick shine, and then it’s over! Unfortunately, the payoff is highly short-lived and will damage your floors with its waxy residue and buildup.

Our Final Thoughts

With many instant shine or rejuvenation products on the market, it’s best to avoid anything with the promise of ‘saving your floors’. The reason these products offer instant shininess to your floors is due to the acrylic or oil in their composition; while it looks great for a moment, it instantly begins to trap dirt, dull, and gunk up your wood floor. So don’t condemn your beautiful floors to a lifetime of grime, dullness, and stickiness. If you have already used these wood floor cleaners, don’t worry. We are here to save your floors! Our unique Clean ReCoat process can cut through the grime left behind by these “cleaning products” and leave your floors squeaky clean and really shine like new.