Floor Cleaners

Handy Andy lends a hand in cleaning Aussie floors

If there’s an area of your home that usually gets overlooked when it comes to regular cleaning, there’s a good chance it’s the floor. It may be directly under your feet, but how often do you really think about it? We’re all so concerned about benchtops, sinks and kitchen appliances that we often forget about one of the greatest harbourers of dirt and bacteria – the floor! Where do you think that dropped food and mud from shoes ends up? Clean floors are essential to a healthy home, especially if you have young ones that crawl around. So, which floor cleaners will be the best bet for maintaining a clean and healthy floor? Our customer satisfaction ratings can offer a helpful guide.

We’ve surveyed more than 1,400 consumers across Australia and asked them about the floor cleaners they most recently bought and used when it comes to factors like effectiveness, value for money, smell and ease of use, amongst others. Eight big name brands have featured in the final results, but this time only one was deemed worthy of top spot in our ratings table – Handy Andy. It achieved five-star reviews for ease of use, packaging design and overall satisfaction, with four stars on effectiveness and value for money.

Best-Rated Floor Cleaners

The eight brands in Canstar Blue’s 2019 floor cleaner review were rated in the following order for overall customer satisfaction:

• 1^st Handy Andy
• 2^nd Earth Choice
• 3^rd Mr Muscle
• 4^th Pine O Cleen
• 5^th Dettol
• 6^th Coles Ultra
• 7^th ALDI Powerforce
• 8^th Ajax

While Handy Andy claimed top spot, Earth Choice, Mr Muscle, Pine O Cleen and Dettol all got four stars for overall satisfaction, while Coles Ultra, ALDI Powerforce and Ajax were left on only three stars apiece. However, there were some other noteworthy results in this year’s review, including Earth Choice getting five stars on smell, ease of use, environmental friendliness and packaging design, while ALDI Powerforce received five stars on packaging and value for money. Mr Muscle was the only brand to get five stars on effectiveness – one of the most important factors – while last year’s winner, Pine O Cleen, still rated five stars for scent, offering a healthy choice of fragrances.

How to find a good floor cleaner

Whether you get on your hands and knees and scrub, or lean on your trusty old mop or steam mop, you will undoubtedly need a floor cleaner that lives up to its dirt-busting promises. This means removing any stubborn stains you can see on the floor – and handling those tiny bacteria particles you can’t see. You’ll also want a floor cleaner that’s easy to use and represents good value for money. Our research this year identified the following drivers of customer satisfaction when it comes to buying floor cleaner:

• Effectiveness: 40%
• Value for money: 20%
• Smell: 13%
• Ease of use: 13%
• Environmental friendliness: 8%
• Packaging design: 5%

Effectiveness was the most important factor in our review, with value for money coming in second. Our survey found that 50% of consumers buy the cheapest brand or brand on special, while 49% always buy the same brand. Interestingly, 64% said they trust supermarket label cleaning products to do a good job.

In addition, 49% of respondents use gloves or protective gear when cleaning, while more than half (56%) buy cleaning products that don’t trigger allergies or irritations. Three in four (72%) said they have used natural cleaners such as bicarb soda or vinegar.

Floor Cleaners Compared

Here is an overview of the eight brands in this year’s floor cleaner review.

Handy Andy

You can still use this product if your name is Steve and you’re pretty useless around the house. A Clorox brand, ‘Handy Andy’ is a no-frills floor cleaner that comes in a five-litre bottle with a ‘fresh’ fragrance. Its bright pink branding means you can’t miss it on supermarket shelves. Whether you want to or not is up for debate, as while it took out top spot in our ratings, Handy Andy also scored three stars for smell and environmental friendliness, meaning there may be some room for improvement. Other ratings include five stars on ease of use and packaging design, plus four stars on effectiveness and value for money.

Earth Choice

Keeping your home nice and clean doesn’t have to come at a cost to the environment, and Earth Choice is certainly a brand of choice for many environment-conscious Aussie consumers. Amongst its armoury of cleaning products is its Floor & Surface cleaner in an attractive bottle made from recycled plastic. It’s claimed to see off dirt and grime and leave surfaces streak-free, while also limiting waterway pollution. It can be used undiluted on surfaces or diluted in a bucket for floor-cleaning. Rated four stars for overall satisfaction, effectiveness and value for money in 2019, Earth Choice received multiple five-star ratings, including smell, ease of use, environmental friendliness and product design.

Mr Muscle

For a brand that specialises in oven-scrubbing, cleaning the floor should be a breeze for Mr Muscle. You can pick up Mr Muscle ‘1 in 5 Total Floor Cleaner’ in either 750mL or five-litre bottles, with a fresh lemon scent promised whichever way you go. The household-grade disinfectant is claimed to lift tough grease and kill 99.9% of germs you’d find on the floor. Aussie consumers are not convinced though, scoring Mr Muscle three stars for smell, ease of use and environmental friendliness. It did achieve a five-star rating in the all-important area of effectiveness however, and four stars in all other rated variables.

Pine O Cleen

Pine O Cleen is a specialist in all things benchtop, floor and even surfaces, with a wide range of cleaners that typically fall into the ‘multipurpose’ category. Its floor cleaner range includes scents such as ‘Crisp Apple’ and ‘Pomegranate Blossom’ which claim to cut through tough dirt and grime on floors and tiles, while killing 99.9% of germs and leaving a brilliant shine. This year, Pine O Cleen got four stars for overall satisfaction, as well as most other research areas. It was also rated five stars on smell and three stars on environmental friendliness.

Dettol

Dettol is a master of all things antibacterial, boasting a comprehensive range of trigger sprays and wipes to help keep areas of your home looking and feeling clean and healthy. Dettol is arguably best-known for its Glen 20 sprays and antibacterial gels, with numerous products that can generally be placed under the ‘multipurpose’ umbrella, including its Antibacterial Surface Cleanser and Healthy Clean Kitchen spray for all kinds of surfaces. When it comes to specific floor-cleaning products, Dettol has its ‘Floor Cleaning System’ – basically large wipes that are claimed to see off 99.9% of the germs you’re likely to find on the floor. Dettol proved a reasonably strong contender again this year, earning four stars across the board.

Coles Ultra

Coles has a range of budget-oriented floor cleaners, including its no-frills liquid cleaner, as well as some floor wipes made for easy spill clean-ups. When it comes to supermarket private label cleaning products, it seems to be a case of ‘you get what you pay for’. Coles’ floor cleaner will be the cheapest floor cleaner on the shelves in Coles, but is it worth spending a little extra? The brand was rated just three stars for overall satisfaction and environmental friendliness. It got four stars on effectiveness, value for money, smell and ease of use, but a five-star rating for packaging design.

ALDI Powerforce

Discount supermarket chain ALDI comes to the cleaning game with its Powerforce range. It was the only brand to record five stars on value for money this year, but was rated three stars for all other categories. ALDI Powerforce liquid floor cleaner is available in three scents – Original, Citrus and Wooden. ALDI won our award for floor cleaners in 2016 and is generally a strong contender across most cleaning categories, particularly if you’re on a budget.

Ajax

Walk into a supermarket almost anywhere in the world and you’ll probably find a few bottles of Ajax. It’s a global brand with an extensive range of cleaning products, from bathrooms to kitchens and everything in between. Ajax floor cleaner is available with a lemon or lime scent and is infused with baking soda – a natural ingredient known for being able to clean stone surfaces safely. Beyond that, Ajax boasts a range of powder cleansers and cream cleansers for a variety of flooring types. Despite the comprehensive line up of products, it was only three stars overall for Ajax this year, as well as for all other categories.

Other Cleaner Ratings

• Toilet Cleaners
• Bathroom Cleaners
• Multipurpose Cleaners
• Carpet Cleaners
• Oven Cleaners
• Glass Cleaners

About the author of this page

This report was written by Canstar Blue’s home & lifestyle journalist, Tahnee-Jae Lopez-Vito. She’s an expert on household appliances, grooming products and all things grocery and shopping. In addition to translating our expert research into consumer-friendly ratings reports, Tahnee spends her time helping consumers make better-informed purchase decisions on all manner of consumer goods and services, while highlighting the best deals and anything you need to be aware of.

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