Our Clifton hard-sided cases come in white and three other light colours of blush, mint and taupe. Since we launched them, we've been on the look out for the best way to protect them from the black marks they inevitably pick up when making their way through the airport. It's almost as if a baggage handler's main focus is on getting your luggage from A to B, rather than how aesthetically-pleasing it's going to look for that airport Insta pic...
@GigiCastellani with Clifton in white | @AllChloeRose with Clifton in taupe
Perhaps you're tempted to buy the white Clifton set but haven't committed yet, as you're worried that white gets dirty too easily and isn't the practical choice. If so, read on...
@JosieLdn with the Clifton cabin in blush and Clifton medium in taupe
The research
We looked at other brands' recommendations and tried them all, but couldn’t find anything that really removed marks in an impressive way, so after a lot of head-scratching and dead ends, we decided to ask the people we knew who travelled the most—the Australians.
We got in touch with the product team at Australia’s biggest luggage retailer, who are well-versed in tales of battered cases, and they put us on to a cult Aussie miracle product called 'Gumption'. They said it was the one product they knew that really did the trick when it comes to removing dirty marks.
Alas, we tried and failed to find it anywhere outside of the Antipodes so our detective work continued. We finally managed to track down an equivalent of this cleaning solution, and in a surprise twist, we found that it’s readily available across the UK for under £5! We know—2020 just got a whole lot more exciting, right?
The magic solution
So what is it? We're going to go so far as to call this a miracle cleaning product. It's called The Pink Stuff and Mrs Hinch is a fan, so it really must be good. There are three products in the full Pink Stuff range—the miracle multi-purpose cleaner, the miracle cream cleaner and the miracle cleaning paste. We went for the miracle cleaning paste.
Naturally, we conducted our own experiment—one of the team came back from holiday with her Clifton case in taupe covered in black scuff marks. Our Clifton cases are made of polycarbonate and have a smooth surface. The paste is kind to the shell of the suitcase, and you just need to use a clean, slightly damp, soft cloth, add a bit of the Pink Stuff paste to the cloth, and dab it on.
Here's what happened...
As you can see, the Pink Stuff really works far better than just soap and water, and all those black marks magically disappeared with very minimal effort.
Our conclusion? It really is a magic, miracle cleaning product, for a bargain price!
You can find it for only £3.99 on Amazon here. We can't recommend the Pink Stuff highly enough for cleaning our Clifton cases so we hope that gives you some reassurance that it is indeed possible to keep a white or light-coloured case looking crisp and new.
Were you undecided about which colour to buy before? Did this post give you the confidence to buy a light-coloured suitcase? Let us know in the comments.
