The Instagram account you need to follow as soon as you've watched Netflix's Tidying Up.

I’m a pretty good sport when it comes to adulting. I’ll cook dinner for you, complete a full ASOS return (printing the form and visiting the post office) and organise a kids’ birthday party. But the one thing that totally freaks me out is… cleaning.

I know what you’re thinking. “Haven’t you watched the Marie Kondo series on Netflix?” Been there, done that. And FYI, that’s about tidying, and not getting rid of the scum on your shower screen. What I really, really want is a visit from Mrs Hinch, aka @mrshinchhome on Instagram – the latest cleaning sensation to hit the interwebs.

I believe that Mrs Hinch is the unofficial sixth Spice Girl: Cleaning Spice. She has the looks, energy and Britishness of a Spice Girl, and somehow she manages to make cleaning seem cool.

And just as the Spice Girls introduced all kinds of catchphrases to our teen lexicon (“zig-a-zig-ah” was good, “yellow man in Timbuktu” not so much), Mrs Hinch has a new word for cleaning that separates the wannabes from the Hinchers. Yes, her followers and acolytes are called “Hinchers” or the “Hinch Army” and their favourite activity is “Hinching”: that is, cleaning.

If you’re ever stressed (um, every day), all you need to do is look at the Instagram account of Mrs Hinch, whose real name is Sophie Hinchliffe. Aaaaah… the photos of her immaculate white and grey home are soothing to the eyes. You can practically smell the freshness.

And oh, her Instagram stories. She demonstrates how to clean all the big and small parts of her home. I’m writing as she shows me how to clean the inside of her fridge (which, admittedly, already looked shop-fresh to me). She’s friendly, the advice and products are accessible, and it’s all very satisfying to watch. It’s the ultimate before-and-after that we need in our lives.

And for me, that’s the best thing about Mrs Hinch – she explains and shares how to clean, without being mean or boring about it. She doesn’t make me feel ashamed – she makes me feel motivated.

I hate cleaning, because I’m scared of dirty things, but I’m also scared of cleaning it up. I’m stuck in a cycle of grossness. And to be honest, I actually don’t know how to do clean. As an adult, I feel too embarrassed to ask friends and family how to do basic cleaning. But then again, if I’m in a conversation when people are swapping cleaning tips, I want to die of boredom. Thank goodness for Mrs Hinch, then, who makes cleaning entertaining and desirable.

And now, here’s everything you need to know about the fabulous Mrs Hinch, the cleaning influencer we all need in our lives:

• Mrs Hinch is Sophie Hinchliffe. The 28-year-old hairdresser lives in Essex, England, with her husband, Jamie Hinch and her dog, Henry Hinch. On Christmas Day 2018, Hinchliffe announced that she’s expecting a baby, “mini Hinch”.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

My Hinchers???? Mr Hinch and I have been keeping a little secret .. ???? All of our Christmas wishes have come true, our mini Hinch will soon be due .. ???????? Henry is going to be the best big brother ever! ????❤️ I Hope you’ve all had the most magical Christmas Day ❤️

A post shared by Sophie Hinchliffe (@mrshinchhome) on Dec 25, 2018 at 1:02pm PST

• Currently, she has 1.6 million followers on her Instagram. She started her account almost a year ago, in March 2018.
• Hinch Yourself Happy: All the best cleaning tips to shine your sink and soothe your soul is the title of Hinchliffe’s book, which will be published in the UK by Penguin on April 4, 2019.

 

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My Hinchers.. I’m not sure if you would have had a chance to watch my story yet.. but if not.. Surprise ???????????? Now I know a lot of you have noticed that I’ve been going into London quite a bit lately, and that’s because I’ve been working on something very special with Penguin which I’m SO excited about. I now have my own book! Me! Soph! Mrs Hinch!! What the! I can’t even believe it! I never dreamed that I’d have my own book one day Hinchers, and here it is! I’m so nervous and excited all at the same time because I’ve worked so hard on it, and I hope you’ll all love it as much as I do.. I get a lot of questions about me and my life and this book covers it all. From everything you need to know about all things Hinching to chapters dedicated to everything you could ever possibly want to know about Mrs Hinch.. I’ve put a lot of me into this book and I hope you enjoy it! I want to say the biggest thank you to all of you my Hinchers, because without you, this wouldn’t even have been possible! My book releases on the 4th April 2019 but is available for preorder now, and the link is in my bio. Please tag me in your preorders Hinchers! I would love to share the love on my stories! And of course there will be a book tour! I’m so excited to meet you all! All the best #hinchyourselfhappy ❤️

A post shared by Sophie Hinchliffe (@mrshinchhome) on Dec 12, 2018 at 11:58am PST

• “I name all my cloths and cleaning equipment, which may sound odd to some, but it is a laugh for us all and now everyone is getting involved,” Hinchliffe told Mirror Online. So that explains why a video of her vacuuming on her Insta stories was captioned “Sharon shark” as the Baby Shark song played. Other nicknames for cleaning equipment include Minky the anti-bacterial cleaning pad, a duster named Dave, and cleaning sprays called Cliff and Paul. Then there’s Buddy and Brian the microfiber cloths, Stewart the Sonic Scrubber and Vera the microfiber spray mop. Uh… I don’t even know what a sonic scrubber or a microfiber spray mop is? Oh, and her cupboard of cleaning products is named Narnia.
• She cleans for a minimum of 30 minutes every day, according to the BBC.
• The main part of the house that Mrs Hinch loves cleaning is her kitchen sink. She’s always polishing it on her Instagram stories, and she described a shiny sink as her “thing” to Mirror Online.
• Mrs Hinch’s advises her followers to bulk-buy cheap cleaning products and to store them in separate baskets – one basket for weekly use, and one for daily use.
• A “Hinch Haul” is when many cleaning products are purchased at once.
• Since September 2018, Mrs Hinch has had a regular segment on the British TV show, This Morning (similar to our Today), in which she shares cleaning tips and hacks. Her first segment was about using fabric conditioner, white vinegar and soda crystals to clean a bathroom.
• Mrs Hinch is a controversial figure, due to the fact that she’s a woman of the 21st century who loves cleaning, who has built a brand based on the prefix “Mrs”. Rebecca Reid wrote of Hinchliffe for Metro, “The fetishisation of cleaning by women on the internet (and trust me, it’s almost exclusively women) totally ignores the reality [that unpaid domestic labour is a reason for the gender pay gap]… It just wraps the oppression up in a pretty bow”.
• On the other hand, Mrs Hinch’s supporters speak of the comforting and satisfying experience of cleaning, and Hinchliffe herself has said that she uses cleaning to calm her anxiety. Kathryn Hearn wrote for The Guardian, “While the country is falling apart around us… we need to turn to bleaching our toilets. This is no coincidence. Cleaning helps us find our way through a dirty world. It can heal us, soothe us, fix us. There’s an almost instant gratification to cleaning. No job is too large, too daunting, too much of a brain drain. From dusting to vacuuming to mopping, there’s a simple, ritualistic process we can follow, and which can make us feel as if we have achieved something.”

Look, I love anyone who lets their freak flag fly, and Mrs Hinch’s genuine love for cleaning has won my heart. That said, I’m still very happy to use the income that my husband and I make to pay our cleaners to do what they do best, so that I can spend my time writing about interesting people on the internet. It’s win-win, if you ask me.

Are you a Hincher? Let us know in the comments section below!

Carla Gee is a writer and illustrator, living in Canberra. The last time she vacuumed, she felt puffed out. You can find her on Instagram as @bycarlagee and @littlecloudcarla.