By now it should be clear you should avoid quats as much as possible due to their health concerns. But what about alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, two other common active ingredients in many cleaning products?
While alcohol and hydrogen peroxide aren’t nearly as concerning from a health safety perspective, they may be too corrosive for your gym bench and could potentially reduce it’s life expectancy. This is particularly true for the upholstered surface part of the bench, which will crack and fade much earlier than necessary when exposed to alcohol and hydrogen peroxide cleaners. Therefore it’s best to avoid those two chemicals as well when cleaning your gym bench.
One common misconception about alcohol is that it’s the best option. The confusion here comes from conflating cleaning hands with cleaning surfaces. For hands, alcohol-based hand sanitizers are the gold standard, but for many reasons, killing germs on surfaces and killing germs on hands require different chemistries. When it comes to cleaning hands, stick with the alcohol-based hand sanitizers, but when it comes to cleaning your gym bench it’s best to avoid alcohol-based cleaners.