Cleaning with baking soda is a longtime hack associated as much with old housewives as TikTok videos. But does it really work – and is it really greener way to clean?
Keeping your home fresh by using cupboard staples like baking soda (also known as bicarbonate of soda, bicarb,NaHCO3, if you’re feeling chemical, but not baking powder, which is a combination of baking soda and cream of tartar) is a perennial hack, associated as much with old housewives as with TikTok vedios, Health Sites and even the Great British Bakeoff’s Nancy Birtwhistle. The idea is that in certain situations, baking soda can replace shop-bought cleaning products, sparing not only the environment but also ourselves from harm.
Baking soda or bicarbonate of soda is a base or alkali, he explains, meaning it has a high pH. Therefore, one of its chemical properties is that it is able to remove hydrogen in the form of an ion from other materials.
“So the molecules literally react?” I ask. “It’s not just that if I scrub something, I’m removing dirt?” Correct, he tells me. Although bicarbonate of soda is also a mild abrasive, meaning it can shift stubborn material off a dirty surface with the help of some elbow grease.
Furthermore, baking soda is not a detergent – it cannot englobe dirt. Most of the dirt around us is greasy, Bressanini says. To clean that, you need Surfactants, molecules which reduce the surface tension between two materials. “Soap is a surfactant. Shampoo contains surfactant and detergents contain surfactants. Baking soda does not.”
