I Refuse to Gentrify My Cleaning Products
The cultural legacy of Lemon Pledge, Murphy Oil Soap, Fabuloso, Windex, Ajax, and bleach.
This is a subscriber-exclusive edition of Brooklyn, Everywhere, a newsletter where I ponder the many meanings of gentrification, and what we lose in our relentless pursuit of “the American dream.”
Editor’s Note: This story is part of a collection of work by Xochitl Gonzalez that was the finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.
The moment that I admitted defeat in the battle over the gentrification of my old neighborhood of Fort Greene, I was in a cramped aisle at the corner store. I had been out of town for a couple of weeks and, upon my return, went in to restock three of my household staples: Bustelo coffee, Bounty paper towels, and Clorox all-purpose cleaner with bleach. I was mystified when they told me that they had stopped stocking Bustelo (in favor of a humanely farmed, organic brand), that the only kind of paper towels they had were some sort of grayish-looking recycled brand, and most horrifically, that all of the “real” cleaning products had been replaced by lines of “all-natural” sprays, washes, and soaps. All these cleaning products came in cute packaging with trendy fonts, and scents with names from the fruit-and-vegetable aisle—lemon, orange, sage. I walked out that night empty-handed and brokenhearted.
Over time, outside the home, I’ve made an uneasy peace with a lot of the conceits of New Brooklyn. I drink coffee-shop coffee with oat milk way more frequently than my old light-and-sweet bodega java. I enjoy the great bars and restaurants. I have embraced No. 6 clogs and statement reading glasses and own an almost absurd number of Rachel Comey dresses. But I draw the line at my cleaning products.
Growing up, Saturdays were for cleaning the house. We would get up early, play music nice and loud, and set about the work of dusting, scrubbing, mopping, laundering, and polishing. We used Lemon Pledge, Murphy Oil Soap, Fabuloso, Windex, Ajax, whatever detergent was on sale that week, and good old-fashioned bleach. There was no spot in the house that was not hit with a chemical. The entire endeavor would take several hours and, when it was over, the reward was a sparkling home that smelled like oil, artificial lemon, chlorine, “lavender” and … well, clean. And it smelled clean because it was clean. And because we had a clean house, we could “relax” for the rest of the weekend and enjoy it. And we could also “relax” because should anyone stop over unexpectedly, we never had to feel the shame of people thinking that you had a “dirty house.”
I am hardly alone in this history. Growing up and cleaning on Saturday mornings (and using Fabuloso and Clorox) is a unifying experience across the vastly diverse Latinx community that is now well immortalized in memes, videos, and articles. It is, for many of us, part of our cultural tradition. But I also found, growing up in blue-collar Brooklyn, where most of my friends were either first- or second-generation Americans, Saturday-morning cleaning was a common bond among us all.
I’m not going to lie; another way that I myself have gentrified is that I no longer spend my Saturday mornings cleaning. (I do the maintenance, and Emmy, who shares my love of chemicals, does the heavy lifting.) But I have lots of friends who can afford cleaning help and still opt against it. For some, it provides a connection to home, for others it is a stress reliever, and for others still, a routine and tradition that helps pass along the modes of cleaning that they want to instill in their own kids.
What I can say for certain is that there is not a natural or “environmentally friendly” cleaning product in my home. I go near (the dollar store) and far (Home Depot) to find my products, and I schlep them home with pride. I want nothing that smells like it could be left around children unattended, nothing that couldn’t also kill insects if used in plentiful enough supply. But it is more than nostalgia or scent memory that keeps me hooked on these chemical-based products. It is my firm belief that nothing makes your house cleaner, nor one happier, than boiling hot water mixed with perfumed poison that is, well, harming the environment.
Which brings me to the point. For years, I’ve skulked around in shame as I’ve rejected organic cleanser after organic cleanser. I’ve quietly pretended that I think these products do the same work and have the same ability as their elder, more toxic siblings. I’ve not judged people’s homes as filthy when I see these products on the counter or in their cabinets. (Okay, I have judged. But here’s why I haven’t judged more harshly: Because I’ve felt guilty about the environment. Because I’ve felt badly that I care more about the eradication of dirt and germs than carcinogens and, I don’t know? The oceans? The ozone? I’m not quite sure what harm my cleaning products are causing exactly. I just know that they are probably not good. I don’t want the Earth to disintegrate, and I do recycle. And yet …)
And yet, I have decided not to judge myself. Because with a tiny bit of distance from the deep pandemic, I realized something. When the going got tough and the tough got terrified of fucking germs, nobody reached for the biodegradable cleansers or the lemon-scented vinegar counter spray. They scrambled for Clorox Disinfecting Wipes with bleach. Why? Because deep down, we all know they work better. And do you know who already had them stockpiled? This girl.
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