Do Not use Dawn, Simple Green, Ammonia or harsh cleaners as they will work to damage and even strip the wax. The wax should last for several months or longer, but when it does start to dull or scuff, clean and let dry, then reapply a fresh coat of wax and let dry.
Use a detergent such as Dawn or Ajax dishwashing liquid mixed with water to brighten a concrete patio that hasn't been cleaned in a while. Just as you would regularly vacuum the floor and dust your furniture inside your house, you should keep your patio clean so it's ready at a moment's notice to entertain.
Don't use ammonia, bleach or any highly acidic substance on polished or stamped floors. Some good cleaners include Castile soap, liquid dish detergent, stone cleaners and mild floor cleaners. Mix a solution, apply to floor with a wet mop and then rinse with a mop dipped in clean water.
Pour one-eighth of a cup of liquid dishwashing detergent into a spray bottle, then top off the bottle with warm water and shake well. Spray the concrete stains with the soap solution, let it sit for 10 minutes, and then scrub with a stiff nylon brush.
For most concrete floors, you can use a mixture of flour and hydrogen peroxide or water and trisodium phosphate. But for stamped concrete floors or polished concrete floors, you'll want to use a gentler solution. If your indoor concrete flooring is stamped, use a mop and mix water and a mild cleaner in a bucket.
Vinegar and Baking Soda
Simply fill a spray bottle with equal parts water and vinegar (or water and baking soda), and add a little bit of liquid dish detergent. Spray the mixture on your concrete surface and let it sit for about 30 minutes. Then scrub and rinse your concrete.
Floor Mopping
Mild dish soap is a surprisingly good floor cleaner. All you need is 1 to 2 tablespoons of dish soap mixed in with a bucket of water. Floors will be clean and shiny in no time. Dish soap is very effective on resilient floorings, such as linoleum and vinyl, and also works well on ceramic tile.
Dish soap is also highly concentrated, so it might take several rinses to properly remove it from your clothes, wasting water. Even then, you might feel a waxy residue on the pieces or notice that towels or fleece pieces seem matted rather than fluffy.
Spray the floor with the Dawn and vinegar mixture. Use the mop and gently scrub the tile. For stuck-on areas or to spot clean, use a soft bristle brush and scrub the area. After scrubbing the entire floor, rinse the mop.
When using Dawn Powerwash, you should avoid cleaning porous surfaces such as marble and other soft natural stones or untreated wood. It is also best to keep Dawn Powerwash away from painted surfaces, too. Always make sure to test new cleaning products on inconspicuous areas of surfaces first.
She specializes in cleaning, organizing, and home improvement projects. Vinegar is an all-natural solution for cleaning concrete. It kills mildew and mold, removes grime, and helps treat set-in stains. Before cleaning concrete with vinegar, it's essential to dilute it so you don't affect your sealer.
Because of this, it can cause harm to certain varieties of concrete surfaces. For example, vinegar can etch or discolor concrete surfaces that contain a high concentration of lime. You must do a preliminary test on a tiny, unnoticeable area before utilizing vinegar to clean the concrete surfaces in your home.
Use full-strength vinegar if you need to remove heavily soiled concrete and let it sit for 30 minutes before rinsing it off with water. You can even mix baking soda with vinegar to remove grease and deep stains. Like most things, vinegar's not perfect, but it's pretty close.
As long as it is properly sealed, concrete is non-porous, making it resistant to stains and exceptionally easy to clean and maintain. Stained concrete floors should always be protected with a good floor sealer to help it resist water, dirt and stains.
A mild laundry detergent, dish soap, or another mild detergent can help create an effective cleaning solution that will help remove most stains and dirt from your stamped concrete. There are even cleaners that are specially formulated for use on concrete that you can use.
Despite the signal word danger on most such labels, gardeners may instead just see vinegar and be careless. Sobering details: In concentrations over 11%, acetic acid can burn skin and cause eye damage, and concentrations of 20% and above are corrosive to tin, aluminum, iron, and concrete and can even cause blindness.
Acid Staining
Acid stains are a reactive coloring process that penetrates into the porous concrete surface. This is probably the most permanent of all coloring options but is usually limited to eight colors.
Natural Stone Countertops. Granite, marble and concrete are porous. Spraying these surfaces with vinegar can cause etching and loss of shine.
Use Dish Soap and Water
Ordinary household dish soap as a degreaser is extremely useful for cleaning up oily, grimy concrete stains while avoiding the use of harmful chemicals. Start with two gallons of warm water and a mere two teaspoons of dish soap in a standard bucket.
For extra tough buildup, pour undiluted cleaner directly on the spot or on a sponge; undiluted cleaning requires a nice rinse to finish the job. When it comes to cleaning concrete, Mr. Clean is always in the mix.
The majority of my solutions contain blue Dawn® Ultra because it's concentrated. The regular Dawn is a non-concentrated version, (also called Simply Clean) so more diluted. Platinum Dawn is almost identical to Ultra, but it contains more surfactants.
Considering the above analysis of some of the key ingredients of Dawn dish soap, we would have to conclude that no, Dawn is not an environmentally friendly product. It contains one or more ingredients that are potential groundwater contaminants. They can pollute the water system and can harm fish or marine life.