Never had quartzite or granite. With marble/laminate/quartz I always use just dish detergent or soap bar and then wipe 2 times with a wet cloth so no detergent/soap remain on the counter.

I use alcohol/water/lavender oil mixture, works great, smells great, no film!

fishymom is that ph balanced - I read that's what you need for stone i.e. soap not good because of this?

According to the EPA doctor I spoke to when I first started making this, it is Ph neutral, and according to marble shop owner with whom I spoke, it's safe to use on marble, and other natural stone.

Thanks cat mom… I'm bumping this up because while that sounds good I really need something easy to purchase for everyday cleaning

Use the same 50/50 alcohol/water mix suggested, and leave out the lavender oil -- pretty easy to just purchase isopropyl at any grocery store, and mixup with water in a pump spray bottle as needed.

Thnaks javiwa

So it's strictly just 50/50 then? cat mom how much lavender oil do you add? Can you get isopropyl from whole foods? or other mainstream grocery stores? Anything else besides lavender oil you recommend to add for smell?

Pippin - yup, I go 50/50ish...strictly by eyeball. Isopropyl = rubbing alcohol, which you can find in any grocery store, Target, WalMart, etc. -- usually in the first aid/bandages aisle. Stores may carry varying concentrations (you'll see this listed as a % on the front of the bottle) -- the higher the %, the more water you'll need to mix with it. (If you read the labelling, the isopropyl you purchase is actually isopropyl + water anyway.) I'm sure you could purchase at Whole Foods, but you'd probably be overpaying. It's very inexpensive.

Dual purpose: really great for sanitizing a SS sink (since we're not supposed to use bleach on SS).

Is this preferable to water with a few drops of Dawn? My marble fabricator/installer told me to use water with a bit of Simple Green. So far so good..

I'm not an expert by any stretch, but have accumulated advice from studying all past posts. We were going back and forth between marble and granite, and quickly realized marble (however gorgeous) wouldn't suit our needs -- therefore, have concentrated most of my time on granite cleaning products. Soap products (which are generally highly alkaline) are not good to use on granite. However, I don't know that that's the case with marble. In all the reading about marble, acids are the big no-no, so perhaps alkaline soaps (Dawn?) are fine....alkalinity and acidity being on opposite ends of the pH scale. Isopropyl falls somewhere in the middle.

Edited to add: quicky reference of pH for housecleaning products.

My remodel isn't started yet so no actual experience with marble. But I have seen recommendations to use a diluted ph neutral dish soap. They do appear to exist. If you google you will find a couple that say they are ph neutral. I plan to buy a couple of the dish soaps I'm most likely to use and test them via litmus strips from the drug store and on my stone sample. I figure I will use a diluted solution in a spray bottle for cleaning. But even if I wanted to use something different, I'd like to choose a dish soap that's okay on the counters because I'm sure some will end up there on a regular basis.

I use 70% isopropyl alcohol (I think it's the strength rec by that doctor). I add the essential Lavender oil (I've seen it at Fairway, Whole Foods, Mrs. Green's, organic/health food stores....) because it has anti-bacterial properties of its own, and I like the scent. I've read (here) that it may alter the surface tension (of the alcohol and water) favorably as well.

You can use as little as 10% alcohol to (90%) water and it will disinfect (again, according to the doctor), however, I use a higher am't of alcohol because it smears less, and cleans better. I started out using ~30% alcohol, but use somewhere around 50%-50% now. It's not exact. I top off my spray bottle when it gets low, or when I don't want to wait for it to become low. I eyeball the amounts, and leave a little room at the top of the bottle to tweak amounts as desired (I go by smell; just enough alcohol, just enough lavender... and by spray/wiping without smearing or streaking). I add maybe 20 drops of lavender oil, plus or minus. You can use other essential oils if you prefer. Tea tree oil is another one with natural anti-bac properties. I don't much care for it's scent, and avoided it because it is harmful to cats (don't know about dogs or other pets).

I had resisted "making my own cleaner" for the first few years after our kitchen reno, but I do like this much better than the prepared products I'd been using, and I use it on the black enamel burner pans on our Wolf range, SS appliances, as well as on our granite. It's easy enough to mix up, and cheaper, too. I buy the larger bottles of alcohol, and try to pick up a few bottles when they're on sale. The lavender oil bottle, small as it is, lasts a long time.

Thanks cat mom - I love this idea… I ended up purchasing some 'Method' granite cleaner while waiting for replies so I'll use that first while I go and get my alcohol (I think I have some lavender oil somewhere and I also like the scent!) Thanks so much for the advice :)

I use Method and also Caldrea granite cleaner (from Target). I found some with a pine tree scent from around Christmas time and I just love it! I used to use full strength alcohol on my black pearl granite and had no problems.

jerzeegirl …I use Caldrea for a few of my cleaning products - I didn't know they had a granite cleaner?

I rely on the alcohol mix for its sanitizing properties (it IS a kitchen counter, after all), and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than these name-brand products (as much as I LOVE how the almondy Method wood cleaner smells!). To the OP's initial query, depending on how much sq footage of granite we're talking about, using products such as Method or Caldrea on a daily basis would cost a small fortune (for me, anyway).