Oxygen Bleach Best All-Purpose Cleaner
This side-by-side slate floor comparison should convince you that the tiny pile of powdered oxygen bleach is your best all-purpose cleaner. The three filthy pieces of slate are surrounded by clean slate. Copyright 2025 Tim Carter ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Oxygen Bleach is the Best All-Purpose Cleaner
Do you struggle and work too hard to get things clean around your home? A plethora of cleaning products assaults you at the grocery store and in TV commercials. I’ve tried many of them, but thirty years ago I was lucky enough to discover the best all-purpose cleaner while doing research for a deck sealer column. I happened to ask this question while meeting with a chemist, “Does it clean anything else?” The it I was asking about was oxygen bleach.
It started two weeks earlier when I was interviewing the president of a small deck sealer company, and asked him, “Do you recommend cleaning the treated wood with chlorine bleach before using your sealer?” At the time, chlorine bleach was promoted by most as the way to clean exterior treated lumber. “Oh, no, chlorine bleach is the worst thing to use! You should always use oxygen bleach.”
What is Oxygen Bleach?
I had never heard of oxygen bleach. The president then said, “It’s best you talk directly with the chemist who works for the biggest supplier of certified organic oxygen bleach. Here’s his contact information.” I proceeded to call the chemist, and a week later we were having dinner at the most famous ribs restaurant in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The chemist proceeded to give a master class on the best way to clean treated lumber. As the waitress served up our chocolate cake desert, I blurted out my anything-else question. The floodgates opened, and in the next forty-five minutes I was bestowed an honorary cleaning PhD. I discovered just about anything inside and outside your home can be restored to like-new condition using magic oxygen bleach.
It's a Magic Powder
Oxygen bleach is a powder you mix with water. The water initiates a chemical reaction that lasts about six hours. Countless oxygen ions are released into the water. These ions attack stain and odor molecules. The cleaning happens before your eyes in many cases without you having to rub and scrub. Tough red wine stains disappear from tablecloths and carpets. Skunk and cat urine odors are removed by this magic cleaner. Tough baked-on caramelized grease in pots and pans softens like butter when soaked in an oxygen bleach solution.
The hospitality and medical industries clamored many decades ago for a chlorine bleach substitute. They were tired of destroying countless sheets, pillowcases, scrubs using harsh chlorine bleach. After repeated washings, the linens were faded and fell apart. Hospitals and hotels needed a new color and fabric-safe bleach that also sanitized. Oxygen bleach fulfilled this need.
The chemist sent me a 100-pound bag of this amazing powder a week after our dinner meeting. He sent a pamphlet describing how to use it, and asked me to share the powder with my friends and neighbors. He said, “If you can clean the item using water, then you can almost always clean it safely with oxygen bleach.” Just about everything inside and outside your home can be cleaned using water.
Within a month, my friends were begging me for more. They were having success cleaning things that they thought they’d have to throw away. Set stains in clothing and carpets disappeared with soaking in almost all cases.
Oxygen Bleach Does the Work For You
The true magic of oxygen bleach is it can do most of the work on its own. Other cleaners often have you rubbing and scrubbing. The oxygen ions do this work for you on a microscopic level. All you have to do is get the surface wet with the oxygen bleach solution and let the oxygen get to work.
The longer you wait, in almost all cases, the less you have to scrub. This weekend, I used my secret oxygen bleach solution to get rid of deep grime and dirt on the painted metal surface of the door between my house and garage.
I mixed up my solution, applied it to the dirt and grime using a paper towel. Vertical surfaces are always more challenging because the solution wants to run down to the floor. I applied the saturated paper towel to the stain like you’d apply wallpaper to a wall. I waited just one minute, and then lightly scrubbed with a sponge. The door looked like new.
Oxygen bleach is an excellent degreaser. I use it in a spray bottle to clean my stove vent hood. I spritz the greasy surfaces and let the solution work for about three minutes. I then just use a soapy sponge and the grease comes off with one wipe. It’s amazing.
My wife uses the same oxygen bleach when doing the laundry. It keeps whites sparkling white. It’s color and fabric-safe. Colors retain their brightness. You get the best results by using the soak cycle in your washing machine. Allow things to soak for an hour or so, then proceed with the washing cycle.
Oxygen bleach can discolor natural wool and silk. It can also discolor aluminum or silver. Those two metals turn black when oxygen in the air reacts with them. It’s no wonder a liquid oxygen bleach solution will do the same.
I developed my own secret oxygen bleach recipe using information gleaned from the chemist. The recipe I use around my home is safe, but it’s so strong that if I tried to send a package of it on a UPS or FedEx truck, I’d have to put one of those yellow oxidizer labels on the box!
CLICK HERE NOW to get your copy of the recipe.
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