It can be tough for customers to keep natural stone countertops shiny, day-in-day-out. Wiping up after daily food prep often leads to a murky haze… which tends to grow murkier with each clean-up.
They wait for you, the professional house cleaner, to re-set those gorgeous countertops back to sparkling clean. Fortunately, the ‘fix’ is wonderfully simple. This 3-step technique gives amazing results with minimum hassle.
In fact, any natural stone, solid surface, or laminate countertop will benefit from this easy process. It’s how I clean every kitchen. (Step #3 is the professional secret… customers have caught me in the process, and said “So that’s how you do it!”)
Cleaning Granite Countertops: 3 Steps to Gorgeous
Step 1: The Prep Remove everything from the area you’ll be cleaning; all small appliances and all crumbs. I like to prep all countertops at the start, by moving de-crumbed countertop items to a nearby de-crumbed countertop or center island, then returning the cleaned appliances to the freshly cleaned countertop.
Step 2: Scrub After de-crumbing, generously spray an area of countertop with a very gentle cleaner. (Diluted dish soap is perfect; I use 1 and 1/2 tsps per quart. Never use vinegar ; the acid can damage natural stone and its protective seal. Avoid all acidic or harsh cleaners.)
Allow the cleaner to set a minute so it can penetrate through what you’re about to scrub off.
With a Scotch-Brite blue Non-Scratch Scrub Sponge, scrub the countertop area well; including the rim. Spot clean upper cabinet, backsplash, and base cabinet at this time.
Step 3: Squeegee With a professional window-washer’s squeegee (found in the janitorial aisle of the hardware store), squeegee the cleaner into a puddle (or right into the type of under-mounted sink seen in the picture~ it’s fun!) Mop up the puddle with a cloth. The squeegee will get the surface bone dry. Use a paper towel to buff dry any moisture left from the puddle.
…And that’s it! Scrubbing the surface absolutely clean, and then removing every last trace of stuck-on gunk, + cleaner, + water, is what leaves the countertop with the gorgeous sheen that feels so smooth, you can’t resist running your hand over it. It really is perfectly clean.
If your customer would like some type of protectant polish on the stone, apply that after you’ve cleaned the countertop. (‘Cleaning’ and ‘Polishing’ are different things; in most cases, products that claim to do both only ‘clean’ what isn’t very dirty.) It’s usually no-big-deal to apply a specialty countertop product onto a perfectly clean surface.
