WANT your home to be fit for royalty? The Queen’s cleaner has revealed her secret tips for keeping palaces pristine at all times.
If it’s good enough for Her Majesty, it is good enough for us mere mortals.
Speaking to the Mail, Barbara Allred, who was head housekeeper at Sandringham for a decade, said: “When you’re working for the top, standards have to be 110 per cent, not just 100 per cent.”
Here are her top cleaning tips…
Bleach is banned
To make one’s royal toilet gleaming, there is a strict procedure.
Bleach is banned as it takes the shine off porcelain, so you should use a limescale product instead.
The age-old debate of which way toilet roll should face has finally been answered, and it turns out the paper should roll from the front.
And chrome taps can be kept clean using a DIY paste of 2 tbsp salt and 1 tsp white distilled vinegar – which can be applied with a toothbrush or cotton bud.
Mix lemon juice and baking powder in equal parts into a paste and leave on mould or mildew for two hours before rinsing.
Vacuuming is not allowed
Buckingham Palace has 775 rooms and 828,000 square feet of living space, so keeping the carpets clean there must be a nightmare.
In a documentary titled Royal Servants, it was revealed that hoovering is actually banned.
The TV show shared that “cleaners sweep carpets, lest royal ears are offended by vacuum cleaners.”
That is a lot of sweeping!
Read our Royal Family live blog for the latest updates
Clean jewellery with gin
Even though the Queen boasts an impressive jewellery collection that us mere mortals can only ever dream of, we can’t imagine Her Majesty gets the opportunity to wear her tiaras on an everyday basis.
Well to stop her diamonds from gathering dust, The Queen‘s royal dresser Angela Kelly has revealed her unusual method for keeping them clean and sparkly – and it involves raiding the drink cabinet.
She wrote: “Gin and water are handy for giving the royal diamonds a little extra sparkle.”
And then if that doesn’t work well enough, Angela then uses washing liquid to restore their shine.
How to make a royal bed
Barbara revealed that the open end of pillowcases should be inward-facing on the bed and the correct number is two per person. Now we know.
Pillows are plumped by punching them, and the bedcover is folded into thirds “concertina-style” in case you get chilly in the night.
Of course, attention to detail is key, and if your cushions have stripes, they should all be pointing in the same direction.
All in all, perfectionist Barbara spends 20 minutes making a bed, and it is only finished when it looks “so inviting you want to dive into it”.
How to fold bath towels correctly
To make your towels look professional Barbara revealed she has a key technique.
She lays towels flat, and then folds them into three lengthwise.
Then she hangs them on a towel rail for display, or will fold them in three again to put in the airing cupboard.
If stored in a cupboard, the fold should face towards you.
How to dust
The last thing you want in your home is cobwebs, and Barbara has a strategy for those too.
She starts from the ceiling on the left side, and uses a cobweb brush to reach the top.
Royal Palaces are notoriously full of antiques and ornaments, and the cleaning professional uses a damp cloth to dust these, or a hogshair brush for picture frames.
If you have wood or windows to clean, never spray the surface directly, but apply to the cloth instead.
Three-minute microwave trick
If you want to clean your microwave, there is a trick to making it easier.
Place half a lemon in a dish with water and blast in the microwave for three minutes.
This helps to remove nasty odours and also makes wiping any stains easier.
In more royal news, Prince William used a different name at university so he could go incognito.
Previously, sweet new footage emerges of ‘protective’ Kate Middleton putting her arm around Prince George at Euros 2020 final.
And this is the moment Meghan Markle’s friend Priyanka Chopra ‘ignores’ clapping for Kate & William at Wimbledon after Royal rift.
