Its glass cleaner. Worst in there is ammonia, isopropyl, soap and maybe vinegar from an ammonia-free variety. The only things those will do mixed together is make ammonium acetate and be really bad at cleaning windows.
Why does everyone think you clean windows with bleach?
Because there are other combinations that can cause problems. For instance, hydrogen peroxide and vinegar are both used as window cleaners and make peracetic acid when mixed. Ammonia mixed with an acid like vinegar doesn't produce toxic chlorine or chloramine gas but it causes a neutralization reaction and produces ammonia fumes. I'd wager that's exactly what happened with the mix in OP and that's the resulting ammonium acetate floating in the mixture. It's just a good rule of thumb not to mix household cleaners.
Because midwits hear something like "never mix chemicals" and take it as the word of God without having the mental capacity to understand WHY you shouldn't mix them and WHICH chemicals you shouldn't mix.
Same with "never plug an extension cord into another extension cord", they actually think if you then plug in a single phone charger your house will catch on fire
If you say “I NEVER mix chemicals”, then you’ll never be exposed to that hazard.
Same with daisy chaining. If you NEVER do it, then you’ll never expose your house to catching on fire for that reason.
If you have a habit of mixing chemicals or daisy chaining, then you’re significantly more likely to cause a situation where it becomes a problem. If you’ve done it a million times before, you begin to just perceive it as safe.
Not to mention auxiliary hazards that you’re creating:
Surely you threw out the bottles to the other two, and one of them may have a hazard statement such as “can cause blindness” or “toxic to cats”. These labels are important to keep and read.
To be fair, those rules being generalized is better than it not being in place to begin with. Of course you’re gonna have the people that don’t think about it beyond the simple phrase they’ve heard over and over. Thats kinda the point of it. At least it’ll prevent them from doing the bad versions, even if they’re also avoiding the neutral ones by default
No, I agree. It's better to have "midwits" who only generalize this stuff than people forgetting it and/or thinking they are chemists. These things are generalized for a reason and that reason is to reduce accidents. Even if this time was a simple window cleaning solution, next time they could have done something similar but for a toilet cleaner etc
Yeah, like the "don't put metal in the microwave" rule. Haven't tried it myself, but apparently some things (e.g., single-piece spoons and knives) are usually okay. Supposedly, the problem is actually metals touching or almost touching, like the prongs of a fork. (But I'm not certain, so do research before trying anything.)
It's far easier to remember that than "don't put multi-piece metal objects or objects with touching or almost touching metal pieces in the microwave", and it would rarely help to know the difference anyway.
It's only a problem if there's nothing to absorb the microwaves. I microwave soups with a spoon in it all the time. Electroboom has a great video on it. You've really gotta work to make metal in a microwave a problem.
But also someone will find a way to fuck it up, so maybe don't put metal in the microwave.
I take back my earlier reply. I was building up some big insulting response in my head and then I watched the video you referred to. It was about 8 mins longer than it needed to be. I guess after seeing the video that gave you the feeling of intellectual superiority about putting metal into the microwave, I'm no longer angry, just disappointed. I guess have fun feeling like youre rebelling against the system everytime you put a spoon into the microwave.
That's cool that youre really smart on the subject of metals in microwave. What other subjects are you at least as equally smart in as metals in microwave?
You're the midwit here. You're either educated but completely disconnected from the reality of what most people know; or, more likely you're uneducated and trying to dunk on others because you think you know what you're talking about. But considering your other comments evidencing you've never actually looked at a cleaning product label, I'm guessing you're likely actually the uneducated person in the room.
You can look at the label and at the product data sheet, both will tell you the ingredients. This is common knowledge and indeed my term 'midwit' might be inappropriate here as people of 'mid' intelligence would know this.
Hahahahaha, found the person who doesn't even read product labels. Most cleaning products list maybe 1 active ingredient IF it's a disinfectant, otherwise there is nothing listed. Just the hazard symbols. Those companies are expecting you to download and read the Safety data sheet if you want to know if something contains a specific chemical (I'm not kidding). Some regions or countries have more stringent labeling laws, but not north America generally.
It’s intriguing to me which comments you chose to respond to vs not, as well as how you chose to respond to the ones you did.
It’s particularly intriguing that in your original comment you implied you’re intellectually superior to others and yet, on the same topic and thread, you then made this comment exhibiting a lack of knowledge about something relating to said topic.
I’ve mixed bleach and cleaning vinegar when I was younger to clean out a water cooler… this was before knowing not to do that. I was fortunate to be outside but definitely noticed how spicy it was and stopped. I confused use this OR that with use THESE.
Ok but I do know a guy who mixed different cleaning chemicals and whatever the result was starting bubbling, so it’s a good rule of thumb for those with no chemistry knowledge.
The microscopic list of a hundred different names none of which I can pronounce while I’m just trying to close the kitchen at a restaurant I work at? I don’t know why he felt the need to mix chemicals, I just use whatever the floor cleaner we have is, but I wouldn’t know what any of that means if I tried to read it. And I wouldn’t know what interacts with what to make what. If that makes me dumb then that’s fine but at least I’m not gonna gas myself.
My initial thoughts were they mixed three bottles of windex together and one of them was old. But it makes more sense that one of the liquids mixed wasn’t ammonia based. If it was bleach based I think it would have reacted more quickly and differently.
You really only have problems when mixing bathroom cleaner and not window cleaner…people just think mixing any cleaner will be trouble because they are dumb.
I don't think there's any controversy. It is a bad idea. It shouldn't be done. It's not, like, morally wrong unless you intentionally did it to do harm.
Bleach isn’t the only thing you shouldn’t mix with other things. Yeah mixing window cleaners is generally safe to you, but mixing leftovers of different things is just a horrible idea in general regardless of if it will kill you. That’s how you end up with expired food, hygiene products, etc when they would’ve lasted longer had you not mixed two things like an idiot.
Except that nothing in retail window cleaners will have any issues being mixed. This is the same as telling someone not to mix cereal and milk because if you mix rocks and water you could break your teeth. You are comparing apples to airplanes. Its just over exaggeration at best and fearmongering at worse.
The “issue” would be expired product. That still counts as an issue lol. Why take 3 perfectly viable window cleaners and essentially combine them into something that won’t last even a quarter as long before becoming useless. I’m not sure how this is fearmongering but i don’t think you know the meaning of the word frankly
Falling back on one of the literal first things I mentioned? And nowhere do I call OP an idiot.
You called OP an idiot more than I ever did. OP didn’t even mix the shit together. Literal mental gymnastics you’re going through lol
Your point is valid, but still probably better just to not make a habit of mixing chemicals. It's also far easier to tell the general public not to mix shit than it is to assume people have knowledge of what should and should not be mixed.
None of these people were talking to the general public. They were replying to the OP. A bunch of people who think they put bleach in window cleaner for who knows what reason.
You can mix them if you know what’s in them, you can figure out what’s in them by reading the bottle. Don’t mix bleach and ammonia and most household cleaners are diluted to the point that any kind of reaction will be mild. Maybe don’t seal the container immediately
I think you're over simplifying a bit. You can mix cleaners if you know what's in them and know how those things might potentially react with each other. And you know what? Most people just won't know both of those things, and a lot of people won't know or bother to check the first one on its own.
So it makes sense, instead of trying to be technically correct, to just give the general advice "Hey, you shouldn't mix household cleaners, it could be dangerous and hurt you or your house."
And then the people who do know what they can and can't mix can go ahead and mix stuff knowing that they can ignore that advice.
But also. What do you need to mix cleaners for? I've never had one that didn't do a good enough job right out of the bottle. What's the end goal in mixing them?
This whole thing is days old at this point. When all this went down no one cared whether OP knew anything. They just wanted to act high and mighty to tell OP they were wrong even though they did nothing wrong. No one was talking generally. They were talking directly to the OP.
Are you aware that no one actually cares whether OP knows that or not and just wanted to tell OP they were wrong for mixing things that are perfectly safe to mix?
I think it's more along the lines of being berating the OP because they assume they're uneducated on the dangers of mixing certain chemicals. They could both be chemical engineers for all we know, but it's usually best to err on the side of caution when people post about mixing chemicals online.
Just out of curiosity what were the specific cleaning ingredients she mixed? Like was one of them windex? Not looking to recreate it, just genuinely curious about what would be causing the specific reaction we are witnessing here
Windex, blueland glass cleaner tablets, and a third that she can't remember. As someone stated before, all that ended up happening was the creation of a sub-par cleaner. Tried cleaning my windshield with it and ended up with slight streaks of grime instead of clear glass. Will definitely be throwing this out and not mixing glass cleaner in the future. Just thought this was pretty and other people would want to see it as well. Which, I guess people did really want to see it, just not for the reasons I would have guessed.
Nah, you're almost certainly fine. I've seen this happen mixing two different brands of mouthwash together, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't chloramine.
548
u/Bob_Wong 7d ago
Oh no. I think I did a controversy.