Grease, fingerprints and dust: which cloth do you use for what on glass, screen and lens?

Why the cloth matters more than your screen

You can have the best cleaning agent in the world, but with the wrong cloth you will still make it dirty or vulnerable. Glass screens, spectacle lenses and lenses have thin, soft coatings: an anti-reflective layer, a fingerprint-repellent top layer, sometimes an anti-grease layer on the inside. Those layers work perfectly well, but they cannot withstand hard fibres, lint or grains of sand that you rub back and forth dry. A cloth is therefore not a detail. It determines whether you remove grease or just smear it around, whether you pick up dust or move it about, and whether your glass is streak-free after one wipe or leaves a haze behind.

Three types of dirt, three different approaches

Before you grab a cloth, it helps to know what is actually on the surface. Grease, fingerprints and dust all behave completely differently.

• Dust and sand: dry particles that you are best off removing first, without pressing. Sand is harder than glass and can cause scratches if you rub it dry.
• Grease and fingerprints: skin oil and sebum cling to glass and are hard to remove with water alone. You need a cloth that absorbs grease into the fibre, not one that spreads it around.
• Deposits and mist: a mixture of grease, dust and moisture. This usually calls for two steps: first clean with a damp cloth, then wipe dry.

A rule of thumb that helps many people: one cloth wet, one cloth dry. The wet cloth dissolves grease and deposits, the dry cloth removes the remaining moisture and the last streaks.

Which cloth belongs with which surface?

Spectacle lenses and lenses

Use a clean, fine microfibre cloth with a high fibre density, or a microfibre cloth made specially for optics. Such a cloth absorbs grease into the fibre and leaves no lint behind. For lenses, the rule is: first clean with a lens fluid or lens cloth according to your optician's instructions, and only then wipe dry. Do not breathe on a lens to moisten it; you will transfer grease and bacteria from your mouth after all.

Phone, tablet, laptop and monitor

Screens benefit most from a soft microfibre cloth without rough edges or little labels. Fold the cloth in quarters, so that you keep using a clean surface and do not wipe the dirt back on. Work in bands from top to bottom. For the screen edges and the camera at the top, you can use a slightly damper corner of the cloth, because that is where grease accumulates. Never spray directly onto the screen; apply the product to the cloth and keep liquid away from seams, speakers and keyboards.

Windows, mirrors and glass

Here you can use a firmer microfibre cloth, or a glass cloth in a check pattern. For coarser dirt, such as dust on a window frame or a garden table, you can first take a separate, coarser cloth and then wipe down with a clean microfibre cloth. Keep those two cloths separate: a cloth that has picked up sand or garden soil is one you never want to use on a screen or pair of glasses again.

Cameras, binoculars and sunglasses with a coating

Treat these as optics, not as household glass. A soft microfibre cloth plus an alcohol-free cleaner is the safe route here. Avoid paper tissues and kitchen paper, and do not polish a lens that still has sand on it.

For all these surfaces the following applies: an alcohol-free, biodegradable cleaner such as Magic Cleaner (magiccleaner.nl) leaves an antistatic, streak-free finish, so that dust settles again less quickly and you have to polish less often.

Why we advise against cotton, kitchen paper and old shirts

The temptation is great: there is a tea towel or a bit of kitchen paper within reach, after all. Yet these are not good choices.

• Cotton leaves lint behind. Cotton fibres break down during use and leave microscopically small bits of lint on glass and coatings. On a dark screen you will see that straight away.
• Cotton is too coarse for coatings. The fibres are thicker and stiffer than microfibre. Rubbing dry over dust or sand pushes those particles into the top layer.
• Kitchen paper curls and scours. Paper fibres are hard and brittle, and recycled kitchen paper in particular can cause leftover fibre remnants and scratches on soft coatings.
• Fabric softener is disastrous. A cloth that has been washed with fabric softener leaves a greasy layer behind and smears it across your screen. That is precisely the streaky haze you wanted to remove.

Microfibre works differently: the fibres are extremely fine and split, which means they absorb grease and moisture in the spaces between the fibres instead of moving it around. That is why a good microfibre cloth already gets you quite far without any product, and becomes truly streak-free with a cleaner.

Washing cloths: this is how they stay usable

A dirty cloth is not a cleaning cloth. Wash microfibre cloths separately from cotton and towelling, so that no lint gets into the fibres. Do not use fabric softener or a detergent with softening additives; an ordinary, mild detergent is enough. Forty degrees is usually sufficient, sixty degrees is fine for stubborn grease. Do not put them in the dryer with a softening sheet and do not use bleach. Let them air dry or dry them at a low temperature.

Replace a cloth when it feels glassy, has become hard, or when after washing