What is a powder cleaning refill and how does it work?

Great question. And as we have spent years developing powder cleaning products, it is one we are well placed to answer.

A powder cleaning refill contains the concentrated ingredients needed to make a household cleaning or personal care product, without the water found in the finished liquid. Add the powder to a reusable bottle, add water and shake. One lightweight refill makes one full bottle of product.

Empty the powder into a reusable bottle, add water and shake. One lightweight refill becomes one full bottle of product.

The simple idea behind powder refills

Most conventional cleaning products are largely water. That water is added during manufacturing, poured into a single-use bottle and transported through warehouses and shops before it reaches your home.

We leave it out.

Instead, we supply the cleaning ingredients as a concentrated powder and you add the water at home. This reduces the packaging, weight and space involved in storing and transporting the product.

The idea is simple. The science behind it is not.

You cannot take an existing liquid cleaner, remove the water and expect it to work. Every ingredient must be carefully selected and formulated so it remains stable as a powder, dissolves in water and performs properly once mixed.

Different products bring different challenges. A surface cleaner needs to spray cleanly and evenly. Dishwashing liquid and hand wash also need to develop the right thickness once water is added. Achieving that from a lightweight powder refill takes some very clever chemistry and manufacturing

How do you make a Cleanery refill?

Each refill contains the right amount of powder for its intended bottle.

1. Empty the entire refill into your reusable Cleanery bottle.
2. Add the amount of warm water shown on the instructions.
3. Secure the lid and shake.
4. Give the powder the directed amount of time to dissolve.
5. Use it just as you would use a conventional liquid product.

That is it. One refill makes one full bottle.

Cleanery refills are designed to work with normal tap water. Using the correct bottle and amount of water is important because it gives you the concentration the product was formulated to have.

Is it the same as a traditional cleaning powder?

No. Traditional cleaning powders are usually applied directly to a surface, added to an appliance or dissolved each time they are used.

A Cleanery refill is mixed once. It becomes a liquid product that stays in its reusable bottle until it is finished. Depending on the product, it can then be sprayed, pumped or squeezed in exactly the same way as a ready-made liquid.

We use our proprietary Cleanery Powder Technology to make household cleaning sprays, dishwashing liquid, foaming dish spray and hand wash.

What is inside the powder?

There is no single formula used across every Cleanery product.

A kitchen cleaner has a different job from a bathroom cleaner. Glass cleaner needs to dry without leaving streaks. Dishwashing liquid needs to cut through food and grease while producing the consistency people expect from a dish liquid.

Depending on the product, a refill may contain surfactants that lift grease and dirt, ingredients that help it perform in different types of water, pH adjusters, fragrance and ingredients that keep the finished product stable.

Every ingredient has a purpose. Our ingredients are plant and mineral based and combined in carefully developed formulations designed by our in-house scientists to deliver maximum efficacy. We also list every ingredient, so you can see exactly what is in each product and why we use it.  >> Visit the Cleanery ingredients page

Do powder cleaning refills actually work?

Yes. We are extremely proud of how well Cleanery products perform.

A cleaning product does not become weaker simply because its water is added at home. Its effectiveness comes down to the formulation, the concentration of its active ingredients and whether it has been properly developed and tested for the job.

Once the correct amount of water is added, a Cleanery refill becomes a full-strength product. Our formulas are developed by our team in New Zealand, manufactured in our purpose-built Auckland facility and tested for real cleaning performance.

We did not set out to make a low-waste product that was “good enough.” It had to clean properly or there was little point asking people to change the way they bought cleaning products.

Why take out the water?

Because for most households, it is already available from the tap.

Leaving it out at the factory means we can avoid packaging and transporting a full bottle of water every time someone needs more cleaning product, dish liquid or hand wash.

Compared with repeatedly buying another ready-to-use bottle, a powder refill requires:

• Much less packaging

• Less weight and space during transport

• Less storage space in warehouses, shops and homes

• Fewer single-use bottles over the life of the reusable bottle

The reusable bottle still has to be made, of course. The difference is that it can be kept and used again and again.

How are powders different from tablets and liquid concentrates?

Powders, tablets and liquid concentrates all remove some or most of the water from a finished product, but they do it in different ways.

Tablets compress ingredients into a fixed solid form and may use additional ingredients like binders to hold the tablet together or effervesents help it break apart in water. Liquid concentrates are already partly diluted, so they still transport some water and require larger packaging suited to a liquid.

Powder gives us the flexibility to formulate each product for its specific job, without needing to compress it into a tablet or package it as a liquid. It also allows us to fit a full bottle’s worth of concentrated product into a very small, lightweight refill.

Do powder refills dissolve completely?

Yes, provided they are mixed according to the instructions.

All Cleanery products are ready to use as soon as they are mixed up. A few, such as the hand soap and dish liquid, will thicken more over a few minutes after mixing.

Follow the instructions on the refill and give the product the recommended time to do its thing.

How long does the mixed product last?

Once mixed, the refill becomes a normal water-based product designed to be stored and used from its Cleanery bottle.

Keep it away from extreme heat and follow the storage and usage directions on the packaging. When the bottle is empty, prepare a fresh refill rather than continually topping up the remaining product with more water.

Powder + water

That, in a nutshell, is how a powder cleaning refill works.

We make and package the concentrated product. You add the water already available at home. The result is a full bottle of effective cleaning product, without needing another single-use plastic bottle.

That is the thinking behind Cleanery Powder Technology: take out the water, not the cleaning part.