Quartz is the easiest stone worktop to keep clean, and most of the harm that comes to it is done by cleaning rather than cooking. It is ground natural quartz bound with resin and pressed into a slab, so it is non-porous: spills sit on top, nothing soaks in, and it never needs sealing. The resin is also the part that a harsh product or a hot pan attacks. Below is the everyday routine Worktop Worx recommends, the products to keep away from it, and how to shift the marks that a wipe will not.
Key points
- Warm water, a little washing-up liquid and a soft cloth, then a dry cloth, is all a quartz worktop needs day to day
- Use a pH-neutral stone cleaner for a deeper clean; quartz never needs a sealer, wax or polish
- Bleach left standing, oven cleaner, descaler, abrasive pads and steam all damage the resin
- Most stubborn marks are residue, limescale or aluminium off a pan, and lift off with a non-abrasive cream cleaner
- Heat marks are scorched resin and will not clean off: a trivet is the one rule quartz has
01 / 08
How do you clean a quartz worktop every day?
Warm water, a little washing-up liquid and a soft cloth does almost everything. Quartz does not need a special daily product, and the simplest routine is also the safest one for the surface.
Step by step
Step 1: Clear and wipe
Lift crumbs and loose food first, then wipe the surface with a soft cloth or a microfibre cloth wrung out in warm water with a few drops of washing-up liquid.
Step 2: Rinse the cloth and go over it again
A second pass with a clean, damp cloth takes off the soap. Soap left to dry is what leaves the faint smeary film people mistake for a dull surface.
Step 3: Dry it if your water is hard
A dry cloth over the surface, especially around the tap and on a dark colour, stops limescale spotting before it starts. It is cosmetic, but it is the most common complaint on dark polished quartz.
Deal with spills when they happen rather than at the end of the day. Nothing will soak into quartz, but tea, coffee, turmeric and red wine left to dry form a crust that takes more effort to lift, and more effort is where people reach for something abrasive.
02 / 08
What is the best cleaner for quartz worktops?
For a periodic proper clean, a pH-neutral stone cleaner. It is cheap, it cleans without attacking the resin, and it is a better choice than a general kitchen spray, most of which are mildly alkaline and will dull a polished finish over years of daily use. Use it as the label says and wipe off with a clean damp cloth.
What quartz does not need is a sealer, a wax or a polish. It is sealed by its own construction and cannot absorb anything, so a product sold to seal or feed a quartz worktop has nowhere to go: it sits on the surface as a film, which is exactly the dull, streaky look it claims to prevent. Anyone selling you one for quartz is selling you a bottle of nothing.
03 / 08
What should you never use on quartz?
Never use these on a quartz worktop
- Bleach left to sit: a quick wipe and rinse is survivable, but a puddle overnight is not
- Oven cleaner, paint stripper, drain unblocker or descaler
- Abrasive scouring pads, wire wool or scouring cream on a polished finish
- Anything strongly acidic or strongly alkaline, including some limescale removers
- Steam cleaners directed at the surface or, worse, at the joins and the silicone
Each of those does the same thing in a different way: it attacks the resin that binds the stone, and that leaves a dull or discoloured patch that no amount of cleaning brings back. A strong product left standing is worse than a strong product wiped straight off, so if something harsh does land on the surface, rinse it with plenty of clean water at once.
Heat belongs on this list too, though it is not a cleaning product. A pan straight off the hob scorches the resin, and in the worse case thermal shock cracks the slab. Slow cookers, air fryers and anything else with a heating element in its base do the same thing slowly. A trivet is the one rule quartz has, and it is the cheapest way to keep a worktop looking new.
04 / 08
How to remove stubborn marks from quartz
On quartz, almost every mark sits on the surface rather than in it, so the job is to lift it off without scratching or stripping anything. Start with the gentlest thing that might work and only move up if it does not.
| Mark | What it usually is | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Dried-on food | A crust on the surface | Soften it under a cloth soaked in warm soapy water for a few minutes, then wipe; a non-abrasive cream cleaner for what is left |
| Smeary film | Cooking grease or dried soap | Washing-up liquid in warm water, then a rinse with clean water and a dry cloth |
| White rings by the tap | Limescale | Warm water, a little washing-up liquid and patience; never a descaler |
| Grey lines that look like scratches | Aluminium rubbed off a pan base | A non-abrasive cream cleaner worked gently, then rinsed; they usually wipe off |
| Marker pen | Ink on the surface | A non-abrasive cream cleaner worked gently and rinsed off thoroughly |
| Tea, coffee or dye | Residue, or dye off a plastic board | A pH-neutral stone cleaner and a non-scratch pad |
| Yellow or brown patch by the hob | Scorched resin | Nothing will clean it off; see the section on heat marks below |
If something has not moved after the steps in that table, stop before trying anything stronger. Our guide to removing stains from stone worktops explains how to tell a residue from damage, and if you are unsure, send a photograph and we will tell you what to use rather than repair what a bottle of the wrong thing did.
05 / 08
Cleaning matt, honed and textured quartz
A polished finish reflects light and hides very little; a matt or textured finish diffuses it and hides a lot of fine wear. The trade-off is that matt finishes, particularly in dark colours, show fingerprints, greasy smears and cleaning residue more readily than polished ones, because the slightly textured surface holds onto them.
The routine is the same, with more attention to the rinse. Wipe with warm soapy water, then go over the surface with a clean damp cloth so no soap is left to dry in the texture, then dry it. A smeared matt top is nearly always soap or grease, not a change in the stone, and a proper rinse sorts it. A non-abrasive cream cleaner is fine for a stubborn patch; a scouring pad is not, on any finish.
06 / 08
Around the sink, the joins and the silicone
The sink area is where quartz works hardest and where most limescale builds up. On an undermounted sink, the polished edge of the cut-out runs straight down into the bowl; wipe it along its length rather than across, and dry it if your water is hard. Rings around the tap and behind the sink are limescale, not damage, and come off with warm water, washing-up liquid and a little patience.
Joins are glued and colour-matched at installation and clean exactly like the rest of the surface. Silicone is different: the bead around a sink or against a wall is a consumable that discolours over time and eventually needs replacing. Do not blast it with a steam cleaner or scrub it with anything abrasive, keep water from standing against it, and replace it when it starts to look tired. On an undermounted sink, the seal underneath is what keeps water out of the unit below, so it is worth a look every few months.
07 / 08
When cleaning will not help: heat marks and chips
A scorch mark from a hot pan is a change to the resin, not a deposit on it. It will not clean off, polish out or fade, and scrubbing at it only dulls the surface around it. The same is true of the gradual yellowing left by an appliance that has run on the worktop for hours. If a heat mark sits somewhere it bothers you, the realistic options are living with it or replacing that piece, and a worktop replacement keeps the units while changing the surface.
Chips happen at edges and around cut-outs. Most can be filled with a colour-matched resin and polished back so they are hard to find, and keeping the chipped piece helps. Do not fill it yourself with a general-purpose filler. Impact and heat damage are not covered by either guarantee, so a repair is chargeable, but send a photo to info@worktopworx.co.uk and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth doing.
08 / 08
Which quartz is easiest to keep clean?
If you are still choosing, colour and pattern decide how often a quartz worktop looks like it needs cleaning far more than the material does. Sparkle quartz is the most forgiving: the mirror fleck hides crumbs, water marks and fine wear that would show on a plain surface. A vein does a similar job, which is part of why marble-effect quartz is so popular in busy kitchens.
At the other end, plain polished black quartz shows fingerprints and water marks more than any other colour, and wants a wipe more often; a black with a fleck or a vein hides most of that. White quartz in a plain bright finish shows crumbs and coffee rings readily but also shows when it is clean, which some people prefer. Free samples cover the Worktop Worx quartz collection, so if your shortlist is in it, put the two or three you are considering on your own worktop, spill something on them and see which you would rather live with.
