Drudgery? No, cleaning’s glamorous – and helps you beat anxiety
So say the new stars of social media who have vast armies of fans tuning in... to watch them scrub the sink
LIKE many popular social media stars, Sophie Hinchcliffe is effortlessly glamorous, with hundreds of thousands of followers hanging on her every word. She calls them the Hinch Army, and Sophie knows what Instagram posts will send them wild. Is it a picture of a new killer heel? The latest designer handbag? Far from it. ‘They love a shiny sink,’ says the 28-year-old.
Dust cloths and descalers – these are Sophie’s tools of the trade, because what she is peddling is not her beautifully curated wardrobe or make-up tips, but her streak-free kitchen.
Her speciality is plain old household cleaning, whether it’s how best to remove stubborn stains or find the most efficient microfibre cloth.
She is not alone. Unlikely as it may seem after decades of women trying to shed their domestic responsibilities, Sophie is one of a new breed of wellgroomed online cleaning gurus, garnering vast followings with their tips on how to get a shiny showerhead.
And just like their counterparts in beauty and fashion, they’re a marketer’s dream, prompting anything they deem a good buy to sell out overnight.
Moreover, while it may have all the hallmarks of a trivial internet craze, psychologists think it addresses something more profound, linking it to a deep-seated need to create a calm space in an increasingly frenzied world.
‘Research suggests that people who have clean homes are more likely to be mentally and physically healthy than those living in cluttered homes,’ says chartered psychologist Dr Susan Marchant-Haycox. ‘One study reported t h a t women who described their home as “cluttered” were probably more tired, depressed, with higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol, than those whose place was in order.’
Her words resonate with Sophie, an Essex housewife and former hairstylist, who says that she found that her daily cleaning ritual helped her manage her anxiety.
‘I’m a worrier,’ she says. ‘For me, the way to keep my mind off what was worrying me would be to clean and organise something and love the end result. Cleaning helps me control my panic attacks, too.’
Still, she had little idea of what would follow when, earlier this year, she set up her tongue-in-cheek Instagram account @ mrshinchhome. At first, it gathered a decent but modest 1,000 followers.
A mere six months later, however, it stands at one million – a selfstyled ‘Hinch Army’ who are so t aken with t heir shiny- homed leader that they have renamed cleaning ‘Hinching’.
Such is her appeal that Sophie now makes appearances on daytime television along with the tools of her trade – which she has winsomely named Minkeh ( an anti-bacterial cleaning pad), Dave ( a fluffy duster) and Buddy ( a microfibre kitchen cloth).
It’s all in a spirit of fun, but Sophie reveals that her account has unintentionally lifted the lid on a deeper phenomenon.
‘Since I’ve started, others have messaged me saying I’ve changed their lives and helped them with their mental health, which to me is simply amazing,’ she says. ‘I get messages each day like this.’
Among those who can testify to t he t ransformative powers of ‘Mrs Hinch’s’ tips is Emma Pope, 26, from Birmingham, who last month published a blog post on her website readwithemma. com entitled ‘Why Mrs Hinch is helping mental health’.
In it, she explained how Sophie had got her out of a slump.
‘ Looking around at my “clean enough but chaos everywhere” home, something had to change. She sent me to the shops, I stocked up with her best buys and got going,’ she wrote.
‘And guess what? Not only is my house now spotless but I’m happier in myself. I haven’t felt that lack of motivation I’d feel every day, and my mood has sky rocketed. And that’s the power of just one woman… cleaning.’
Lynsey Crombie knows all about that, too. The 40-year-old lives in Peterborough with husband Robert, 40, and her 15-year-old twin daughters and ten- year- old son. But she is better known to her 83,000 followers on Instagram as @lynseyqueenofclean.
One of the first women to find social media fame via the medium of a can of Mr Sheen, she also makes regular TV appearances on programmes such as Channel 4’s Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners. Lynsey says that she finds cleaning therapeutic, in her case helping her through a complicated relationship breakdown.
‘No amount of counselling worked like this did,’ she says. ‘It was my coping mechanism and it brought me out of a dark hole. There’s something really wonderful about channelling your negative energy into cleaning and having an end result.
‘Part of what I wanted to do with my Instagram was to show people that, if you feel you’re in a bad situation, don’t sit on the sofa and dwell on it, or think that antidepressants are the only option, instead improve your living space.
‘When you’re in control of your surroundings, and your house is clean, you feel happier.’
This revelation led to Lynsey establishing her own cleaning business, as well as setting up a website and latterly an Instagram account on which she sets her own band of followers a daily fiveminute motivational challenge, urging them to see just how much they can achieve in that time.
‘Everyone loves it,’ she claims. ‘I pay my daughters to do my filming and photos as they are much better with technology than I am.’
It must be said that not everyone is likely to be able to keep up with Lynsey’s gruelling regime – one which would put even the most ardent of gym bunnies to shame.
In order to keep on top of the
‘People tell me I’ve changed their lives’
cleaning of her four-bedroom house – not to mention its five bathrooms – she rises at 5am every day.
‘Between then and 6.30 is when I get most of the cleaning done,’ she says. ‘I’ll do the lounge, the kitchen, put the washing machine and dishwasher on and then do the bedrooms and the kids’ en suite bathrooms when they’ve gone to school.
‘Most of the time, I have a cloth in my hand,’ she says, her enthusiasm unquenchable, ‘and I’ll be doing the windows when I’m on the phone.’
Meanwhile, over in Carmarthenshire, another cleaning Instagram star, Jo Tunnicliffe-Evans, 30, confides she is less of a personal enthusiast, as running her own cleaning business has dampened her appetite to do quite as much at home.
She set up her business in 2015 to do something that worked around caring for her five-year-old daughter Seren, and found that she learned so much from her day-today endeavours that she decided to share it with a wider audience.
Her blog jottiesjournal.com was born, and last year Jo turned to Instagram where she now has 51,000 followers. Like Lynsey and Sophie, Jo admits that she feels the state of the house reflects her state of mind.
‘If I feel like I can’t keep up with the cleaning, it’s often because my mind is a mess, too,’ she says. ‘When I realise this I take a step back and think about what I need to sort in my head. The process of doing this helps me get my home back in order.
‘ We lead such busy lives that sometimes we have to stop and reorganise our mind, which helps everything else follow. The saying tidy home, tidy mind really runs true for me, and lots of my followers relate to this also.’
And while she understands the meditative potential of cleaning, Jo also has a slightly more unorthodox approach to defusing tension: She is a believer in what she calls ‘a good rage clean’.
‘It lets you release that energy that you have been building up,’ she says. ‘ It also gives you the chance to resolve things in your head that you have been thinking about before actually confronting the situation.’
Still, most women see cleaning as a chore, don’t they? Not according to Lynsey, who says that given it has to be done, why not make it fun. ‘I love the idea that I’m inspiring the country to pull out their mops,’ she says.
She points out that one reason for the rising popularity of cleaning influencers may be the vast number of rival products on the market, which leaves many bamboozled.
‘On average, I get about 800 questions a day with people wanting cleaning tips or sending me pictures of their cleaning disasters,’ she says.
‘It’s very time-consuming, but if people take the time to follow me, I should have the decency to reply.’
One of Lynsey’s specialities is promoting more old- fashioned methods. ‘There was an old people’s complex close to where I lived, and I used to do shopping and cleaning for them,’ she says.
‘ The residents t aught me so much about how to use lemon juice, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar for cleaning, rather than loads of “specialist” products, and I’ve picked up lots of other ideas over the years.’
Naturally, manufacturers have quickly cottoned on to the commercial benefits of this new-found enthusiasm for an immaculate home. One nationwide chain, Home Bargains, uses its own social media feed to tell followers that the shops have stocked everything they might need for a shopping trip inspired by Mrs Hinch.
Meanwhile, high street chain Savers went one step further: last month it invited Sophie to open one of its new stores in an Essex shopping centre, while its Worcester store has a dedicated stall – labelled, naturally, Hinch Army – featuring her favourite products.
Sales have soared, according to Doug Winchester, Savers’ managing director.
‘Customers are coming in with their phones to find the exact products shown in these social media videos,’ he says.
Of course, not everyone will welcome this new fetish. After all, women spent years fighting for the right to be emancipated from domestic drudgery. Isn’t this a step backwards?
Not according to Lucy Lendrem, head of t alent agency Gleam Futures, which has recently signed Mrs Hinch, and also counts social media stars such as Zoella among its clients.
She believes that the new domestic gurus are simply feeding a d e ma n d that has always been there.
‘Cleaning channels and feeds are quite often tip-led; giving the consumer an insight on how to do something better, more easily or more cost-efficiently than you were doing it before,’ she says.
She’s convinced cleaning influencers can attain every bit of the kind of star status achieved by today’s beauty and fashion social media stars.
‘ If someone can give the consumer this insight, but with an entertaining spin, then they’re on to a winner,’ she says. ‘It’s all about personality and being able to connect with an audience. The topic of discussion is irrelevant.’
So it’s fair to say that today’s online cleaning gurus are likely to be more than a flash in a – very sparkling – pan.
‘Release your energy – with a Rage Clean’