Vanesa Amaro Found Her Calling Cleaning Homes And Now Has 5 Million Followers On TikTok

If you don’t already follow Vanesa Amaro on TikTok, otherwise known as the “Queen of Cleaning,” you’re in for a treat. 

Amaro’s page is dedicated to sharing unexpected, life-changing household tips, such as preheating your oven before cleaning it, or using a “two towel method” for getting rid of streaks from kitchen cabinets. 

At a shocking 5.4 million followers and counting, there’s no doubt that Amaro just clicks with her audience — her down-to-earth attitude, humor and her top-notch, squeaky-clean tips keep us all coming back for more. As someone who still cleans homes today, Amaro’s TikTok success now allows her to clean homes for free for families that need it the most. And the best part? She’s breaking through stigmas surrounding cleaning homes every step of the way.

Amaro sat down to speak with mitú about her journey, and it’s truly a wild ride. She said, “I didn’t pursue cleaning, cleaning found me… Cleaning and this whole opportunity happened to me because of adversity.”

So, what happened? Amaro explained, “In my family’s case, my husband lost his job, I lost my job, and… bills don’t wait for you… I knew that we had to find something fast.” Since they didn’t have much time to look for another career or go back to school, the couple began to clean houses together.

The TikTok star had cleaned houses before as a hobby: “I did it almost like therapy. So I told my husband, ‘People pay [a lot of money] for cleaning houses… maybe we can try it out and see.’”

But not everyone around Amaro was sold on the idea. She remembers some people telling her, “Ew, you’re going to be a housekeeper?” and saw it as a “degrading job.” However, Amaro explains she will “always be proud” that she and her husband “were not afraid to do it.” 

She told mitú, “[My husband and I] went from working regular jobs at a company, working indoors in an office with A/C, to scrubbing toilets for people.” While she says it was not the easiest transition, they weren’t scared “to do whatever it took to feed [their] family and survive.”

Now, Amaro sees the situation as “the best thing” that could have ever happened to them, leading her to find her calling in cleaning houses, and sharing her expert tips with millions of people every day.

So how did Amaro go from cleaning homes to major TikTok fame?

Well, like many of us, it all started by downloading TikTok at the beginning of the pandemic. “My husband and I had watched all the Netflix we could watch… we were bored out of our minds.” Once Amaro’s sister convinced her to download TikTok, she noticed she could share her cleaning tips.

As Amaro says, “Cleaning is not for a certain gender or age, cleaning is for everybody.”

As a universal task, “cleaning is part of our everyday life,” making her page so relevant to a wide audience. The TikToker remembers thinking, “What do I have to lose? Nothing,” and her meteoric social media journey began. “I started sharing cleaning TikToks, and one of them just went viral with 12 million views.” And the rest is history.

mitú asked Amaro to share some exclusive cleaning tips, and she truly delivered. Her first tip? Do not use the same mop to clean the bathroom floor and the rest of your house — and if you do, leave the bathroom floor for last.

A better option? Use wet mopping cloths you can switch out instead, such as Clorox Scentiva’s Disinfecting Wet Mopping Cloths (Amaro adores the pacific breeze & coconut scent, which makes her feel like she’s on a tropical vacation). 

The TikToker explains that you “don’t have to have a lot of cleaning products, but you have to have the right ones.”

For this reason, Amaro also recommends Clorox Scentiva’s Disinfecting Multi-Surface Cleaner since it works for almost every purpose and is bleach free. “You have to have cleaning products that are versatile so you don’t feel the need to buy multiples.”

So how about the age-old concept of using vinegar as a cleaning product for virtually anything? Don’t tell your abuela, but Amaro isn’t totally sold on the idea. She said, “I do use vinegar, however, I stay away from it sometimes because people have made it seem like you only need vinegar to clean your house and nothing else.”

Amaro continued, “To my knowledge as a professional housekeeper, I can tell you that is not true. You can use it in your arsenal as a multi-purpose wand, but you still need to incorporate other things.”

Another product Amaro can’t live without? The classic Dawn Dish Soap. “I have to have it, I can probably clean a whole house with that [along with] Clorox’s Disinfecting Cleaner.” 

Amaro’s biggest cleaning tip ever is having a cleaning schedule.

She even designed a Cleaning Ebook to pencil your schedule into a nifty calendar, also including links to her favorite products, recipes and tips. “It’s one of the things I’m most proud of… I feel like it is very useful for people.” She says, “I have made cleaning easy for you… what’s the excuse?”

Still, the TikToker says she knows “how hard cleaning can be.” Amaro remembers her grandmother always telling her, “Cleaning can be calming,” and replying, “No, cleaning is awful.” Even though she preferred sticking to washing the dishes, her grandmother would say, “Cleaning can be peaceful to the mind… the trick is, when you’re cleaning, only concentrate on what you’re doing… you’re not focusing on [anything else].” 

Amaro’s grandmother taught her to “live in the moment” while cleaning, an ethos she still follows when showcasing her passion today.

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