The vintage cleaning hacks that still work today

Kya deLongchamps shares the cleaning hacks from Victorian times onwards that still keep homes sparkling

A wartime London householder cleaning her grate in 1941.

Cleaning habits have altered a lot since the days of Sunlight Soap. Before plunging into sepia-tinted hacks to sparkle up your manor, there’s a long, leery list of nostalgic practises that are at best potentially destructive, and at worst downright lethal. 

Lay off ancestral oddities including naphtha (crude oil), pulverised stone, sulphuric acid, caustic soda or bovine gallstones to freshen things up. Weird, archaic, stinking and corrosive, they are best left on the shelf in favour of other classic, non-toxic choices — milk, beeswax, bread soda, lemon juice and (where appropriate) white vinegar.