Clean house clean mind? or just another fad?

If you are present on social media right now, especially on Instagram, you will have seen the cleaning craze going on right now. You will see a sponge out of stock in the entirety of the UK and is now going for close to £25 on Amazon. Shelves in supermarkets are bare of certain cleaning products and people are scavenging the country for the highly sought after items on the “Hinch Haves” highlight. This is all because of one woman, the instagram user Mrshinchhome. Mrs Hinch, also known as Sophie, has an instagram page which gains around 10-13k followers A DAY and has now hit 1 million followers. On paper this sounds so niche and so bizarre and yet so many people are addicted to it. So this got me thinking why would people be so intriguing and addicted to this lady who cleans her toilet at least 3 times a day?! I decided I would share my thoughts on it all and ask you what you think about it?

So here’s a little background to my relationship with cleaning. My mum would always clean my stuff up, I learnt as a kid that if I left it long enough she would just do it instead of forcing me into it or following through with her threats of binning my stuff . So until my teens I just didn’t feel the need to learn how to clean really because it was never a necessity for me. Then my boyfriend got his own flat and boy was that a kick up the arse for me. I learnt how to clean properly because it wasn’t my space, and it was a place I wanted to be clean and happy for the both of us. It’s been a journey (yes I know how stupid that sounds) but I’ve got to a place where I’m in a routine so I don’t get too overwhelmed with it all.

You’ll be thinking why the hell am I writing about this? I get that, I really do, but I had a thought about why so many people are obsessing over this. Mrs Hinch mentioned on her appearance on Good Morning that she was involved in mental health campaigns, now what has that got to do with her cleaning? Well, how much better do you feel once you’ve cleaned your house? How much easier can you rest once your environment isn’t a shit tip? I think there is a link between cleaning and helping you feel better. Maybe this whole thing is a tool to help people feel better about themselves. I once saw this quote saying “the first thing you should do in the day is make your bed, so you’ve accomplished at least one thing in your day” and it makes me think about how great I feel once I’ve cleaned my environment, I feel like I feel decluttered in my head too and I’m distracted for a small amount of time from the junk in my head. Even just cleaning my room or kitchen can help me feel like I wasn’t a complete failure in my day because I was useful in some way. So in that sense I can see this craze picking up the way it did, it provided motivation for a boring job that needs doing and a way to keep your space clean.

However I can also see why people aren’t for it. I mean she uses an insane amount of products that isn’t exactly cost effective, she can seem to be playing a part in this consumerist society and the amount of harmful chemicals used aren’t that environmentally friendly at all. The whole basis of her channel does seem to be “buy this, its lifechanging” which can be quite draining to see everyday, especially when you’re on a low budget for non essential things like three different types of bathroom cleaner. It can also be seen as un-enrivonmentaly friendly due to the sheer amount of different chemicals used everyday, which can’t be great for her health too. Another issue or comment I see regularly, which Mrs Hinch has already addressed, is that she is constantly cleaning a house which is already clean and that she doesn’t have children which means she can keep her house pretty clean easily. I personally think the not having children comment is completely unnecessary because we don’t know her situation especially when it comes to either her fertility or her choices on having children, because it is none of anybodys business but hers. I can understand the point that she is cleaning an already clean house, which might seem like a waste of time or that some of it is fake because its not actually making a massive difference. An issue with the sheer amount of time she cleans is that it could make people feel guilty or ashamed that they cannot dedicate themselves as much as she does, which is counteractive to what she is wanting to do.

Another debate I have also been seeing is that is Mrs Hinch reinforcing gender roles and stereotypes which women have been trying to break out of for however many years. This isn’t something I have really thought about myself but it did really get me thinking about it. Do I think that is her intention? Definitely not, she just seems like a women who is really into her cleaning and finds it good fun. However I can see how people can see that, I can understand how people can feel a bit weird about how it is aimed at women especially when feminists have been working hard to change these notions that women have to do the domestic work. I personally don’t agree with that view point, especially since I had never really thought of this until I saw it on twitter, I think that she is just sharing her passion just like we do on our blogs and other platforms and doing whatever the hell she wants.

Overall what do I think of this trend? I have a few final thoughts. Firstly, I think it is good that she has motivated so many people to take pride in their homes and to start to really look after their environment which helps them gain a sense of achievement. However I don’t agree with the idea of constantly pushing products (maybe because she loves them or maybe because she is getting sent them), just like I’ve previously said in my the reasons why I stand by social media Post everything on social media should be taken with a pinch of salt and without naivity.

Secondly I very much support the idea of the “tidy home, a tidy mind” mindset because it has seemed to be something that can help me on lower days however it is NOT something that can cure me. I would like to hear more about her campaign for mental health so I can really understand what she is trying to do and why she has blown up really.

I would be really interested to see what you guys think about it all and whether you’ve joined the hype too?

Thank you so much for taking your time to read this post and I hope to see you around these parts again soon!

Alex x