The 3 Best Surface Cleaners and Disinfectants of 2025

A burgeoning category of disinfecting sprays carries labeling declaring them “family-friendly,” “plant-based,” “natural,” “safe,” or “environmentally friendly,” among many other buzzwords. Without specific, clear information and backup, however, these claims might just be greenwashing, so we’re carefully looking into this new field.

We got a head start with the Clorox Disinfecting Multi-Purpose Spray Cleaning System. We like that the cleaner comes with easily replaceable, insertable refill capsules. But we don’t like the extra steps involved in the disinfection process—in order for the surface to be food-safe, you have to rinse this spray off with water after its dwell time of several minutes.

We also began experimenting with Clorox Free & Clear Disinfecting and Sanitizing Mist, which uses citric acid as the active disinfecting ingredient. We tested it on plastic, wood, and my couch, since it’s meant to be safe for fabrics. The plastic surface took about two minutes to dry (the minimum time necessary for disinfection), while the wood and the fabric each took about four minutes. The hard surfaces felt slightly sticky after five minutes, so we’ll likely go over them with another all-purpose spray cleaner afterward, when we resume testing for this guide. The fabric on the couch wrinkled slightly, but I was able to smooth it out with my hands.

Clorox launched Disinfecting Wipes as an expansion of its plant-based EcoClean line. Like the Clorox EcoClean Disinfecting Cleaner mentioned above, its disinfecting power comes from citric acid and it’s Safer Choice certified. We have similar concerns about its broad availability, but are curious to see if it packs the same cleaning power as its more standard Clorox Wipe cousins.

At the ISSA show, we learned about PortionPac, a product line that’s largely used in industrial cleaning and janitorial contexts but is available to consumers as well. We were intrigued by its form factor as a move toward a more sustainable way of packing and shipping products and reducing plastic waste. It comes concentrated in little pouches that you then dilute with water. It’s also Green Seal certified and impressively cheap; a $7 kit comes with a spray bottle and five packets of concentrate which makes a total of 5 quarts of all-purpose cleaner. Of course, whether we end up recommending it will come down to testing its cleaning power.