What It Means to Be “Hollywood Clean,” and Why It’s Trending on TikTok
Everyone approaches cleaning differently, but what matters most is finding a style or system that works best for you and your home. Some people incorporate daily habits, create weekly schedules, and/or commit to monthly dig-in sessions to get their homes as tidy as possible; others forgo deep cleans altogether and tackle the most pressing or visible issue. And as it turns out, there’s a name for that type of cleaner, according to TikTok.
Late last year, Sarah Nicole (@sare.nicolee) posted a TikTok with text that reads, “When your boyfriend grew up in a ‘deep clean house’ but you grew up in a ‘Hollywood clean house’” — and it took off. The video has 5.4 million views, more than 800 thousand likes, and almost a thousand comments.
It resonated with people, with one person commenting: “I’ve never heard the term Hollywood clean before but knew immediately what you meant cause that’s what I do 😭” and another saying “I’m a Hollywood clean kinda person, so is my mom. I don’t have time or energy to deep clean.”
What Is “Hollywood Clean”?
Nicole posted more videos explaining what she meant by this term, which she later revealed that her parents had coined. According to her, Hollywood clean is a cleaning style that’s essentially a surface-level cleaning. Growing up, Nicole says that “they’d make sure the home looked really good, but there’d be no deep cleaning involved.” For instance, this could be taking care of messes and getting rid of visible clutter. (She does go on to clarify that she does other must-do tasks regularly, like washing sheets weekly.)
Many people had different thoughts on this whole concept of “Hollywood clean” vs. “deep clean” — whether they felt like they could identify with one or the other. One comment that stuck out was the idea of marrying the two: “Mon-Fri: Hollywood. Sat/Sun: deep clean. If you keep up on it it’s never really a deep clean cuz it never gets that bad.”
A great example of having both cleaning styles at work is in this video, where TikTok user @jasthecreative_ cleans her bathroom and shares that she identifies as someone who Hollywood cleans with a touch of deep cleaning every couple of weeks.
What do you think about “Hollywood clean”? Is this cleaning style similar to yours? Tell us in the comments below.