I don’t know about you, but when it comes to a home, I like it to be fresh and clean, and I enjoy a deep clean of the space at least once a month.
Whether I’m polishing the vanity, dusting the lamp shades or cleaning the kitchen side, for me cleaning is a relaxing, almost therapeutic task.
But as someone who enjoys cleaning, I know it can sometimes be costly. The amount we spend on products can quickly begin to add up, especially cloths and sponges.
Well, recently I discovered a rise of people going to budget site Temu, known for selling very cheap (sometimes questionable) items, to get their cleaning products.
I thought I’d try it out for myself and see if Temu was the place to go to get cheap cleaning gadgets, here’s how it went.
The endless choice of Temu cleaning gadgets
When I searched cleaning gadgets on Temu’s search bar, I was expecting the basics, cloths, spray bottles, sponges and the endless array of your basic cleaning items and gadgets.
But when I discovered Temu sells all types of cleaning gadgets, I was slightly taken aback, with hoovers on sale and many other slightly unusual products.
So I thought now was the perfect time to try out those odd items, leaving me with a basket full of cloths, and sponges as well as a spray bottle comparable to a Swiss knife and a ‘Magic Brush’.
If you’ve shopped on Temu before, you’ll know that every item is often half price or more and when you get to pay, you see a huge apparent saving.
Temu says my original total was £60 for the eight items I brought, but with their discounts I saved £49.51, meaning I paid just £10.49.
The cleaning products I brought from Temu were:
- Electric Rotating Floor Washer - £5.47
- Cleaning sponge brush with handle – 57p
- Glass cleaner brush - £4.31
- Dish sponge - £1.75
- Microfiber cleaning cloth – 57p
- Magic Nano Sponge Eraser – 88p
How good are Temu cleaning sponges and cloths?
Sponges are a very basic but key cleaning tool, so I ended up buying three variations, a pack of dish sponges, a ‘nano sponge eraser’ and a sponge with a handle.
I started my test with the ‘nanosponge eraser’, on first impressions, they are incredibly hard, and it took a lot of water to get them soft and ready to help clean.
The white almost brick-like sponge did clean up and take up dust and marks but they don’t seem reusable, as when I placed some light pressure to get in the corners of my kitchen side, the sponge ripped in half and that was that.
Although the ‘nano sponge’ didn’t impress me, Temu’s dish sponges were great and very similar to a certain daddy on the market.
The scrubber side helps get up any tough stains with ease and it feels strong and unlike to rip in an instant.
Plus, the soft side of the sponge easily picked up any signs of dirt and left my test subject (an oven tray) looking like new, costing £1.75 for a pack of three, I struggled to find any issues with the dish sponges.
Last but not least for sponges was the cleaning sponge with a handle, at first, I thought the handle was useless, but quickly fell in love when I realised, I was avoiding any chance of getting dirt on my hands.
Easy to move, I did find one problem with the sponge as it wasn’t the most durable and took a lot of work to get marks out, but with some effort, it did pick up dirt.
Along with the sponges, I grabbed a packet of the old faithful microfiber cloths for just 57p, and I have no complaints.
Just like your basic microfiber cloth, these do exactly what they’re meant to do and are easy to use and get an extra point for the bright colours.
Is this the Swiss army knife for cleaning?
Away from the basics of sponges and clothes, I spotted a cleaning gadget on Temu that seemed too good to be true, a 4-in-1 Glass Cleaner that came with a brush, scraper, wiper, spray bottle and cloth attachment for £4.31.
I expected this to be way over the top and a hassle to use, but I was wrong, it’s everything you could want and need for a glass cleaner all in one.
Easy to put together, the spray bottle is a great size and with the scraper and cloth already attached, it means you don’t have to worry about cleaner running down the glass before you have the time to spread it and leaving marks.
The only tiny thing I didn’t like about the glass cleaner, was the brush on the base, its placement made it a bit awkward to use and I would still prefer the traditional separate brush.
But otherwise, Temu’s glass cleaner may just be one of my new favourite cleaning gadgets and it is the Swiss army knife of cleaning.
Not charmed by the ‘Magic Brush’
The last product I tested out from Temu was the viral ‘Magic Brush’ which from the get-go, I was sceptical about.
Offering a similar design to a massage gun, the Magic Brush cleans by rotating the sponge at the end with three choices of sponges included.
You get your normal soft sponge, a scouring pad and a dish sponge which can easily be swapped out and placed on the brush end.
Using the Magic Brush to clean, my sceptical thoughts were right, it just moved the soap around and didn’t do much cleaning unless you put some pressure on it but then it felt like it might break.
I think the Magic Brush has some potential for accessibility needs, but for me, it’s a pass.
Would I shop on Temu for cleaning products again?
There are some positives to using Temu for your cleaning gadget shop, like cheap prices and the number of items you’ll get for just £10.
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But, I think Temu offers the dangerous position of buying endless products for cheap that are likely to just sit in a cupboard or be a one-time use when you can get good quality products with no shipping waiting time.
There are already plenty of shops in the UK that offer cheap cleaning products, many of which are known reliable household names that I would prefer to stick to.
So while I think some of the Temu products are great, I’ll be sticking to what I know I like and happy to pay the extra few pennies for them.
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