Household products are bought on habit more than on judgement, which is why most kitchens end up with six bottles that do roughly three jobs. Faberlic's home range is broad enough to cover a household properly, and the useful exercise is working out which categories you actually need rather than collecting one of everything.

What the range includes

  • Laundry - powders, concentrates, liquid detergents and laundry fragrances
  • Stain removal - sprays and pre-treatment products for specific marks
  • Dishwashing - hand-wash liquids and products for dishwashers
  • Kitchen cleaning - degreasers, and specialised products for ovens and hobs
  • Bathroom cleaning - limescale and surface products
  • General surface care - floors, glass and multi-purpose cleaners

Concentrated formats appear across several of these. They cost more per bottle and less per wash, and they take up markedly less cupboard space - worth the arithmetic if you buy in quantity.

A set that covers a home

Most households are covered by five products rather than fifteen:

  1. A laundry detergent suited to how you actually wash - concentrate if you do frequent loads
  2. A dishwashing liquid, or dishwasher product if you have the machine
  3. One kitchen degreaser for hob, worktops and the greasy end of cleaning
  4. One bathroom product for limescale and sanitary surfaces
  5. A multi-purpose surface cleaner for everything else

Add a stain remover if you have children or sport in the house. Specialist products beyond that - oven cleaners, descalers - are worth buying when the need arises rather than in advance.

Practical points

  • Match the laundry product to water hardness and load size; more detergent does not mean cleaner clothes, and residue makes fabric stiff
  • Never mix cleaning products, particularly anything for bathrooms - the combinations can produce genuinely dangerous fumes
  • Keep concentrates in their original containers, out of children's reach
  • Follow the dilution on the label; concentrated products are formulated to be diluted, and using them neat wastes them

The current home assortment, formats and instructions are listed in the Faberlic catalogue, which is reissued roughly every three weeks. Consultants order household products at a discount of up to 26 percent.