Apple Tips #2 – How to Clean a White MacBook

I’ve been called obsessive compulsive when it comes to my hand washing. I wash my hands after doing anything. I wash my hands after being out in public. I wash my hands after going a half hour without washing my hands. When my hands are dirty, my whole life feels dirty. I feel dirty. Tainted. Stained.

Which brings me to my point – no matter what you do, no matter how clean your hands are kept, your white MacBook is going to get dirty from them. My MacBook is super filthy, and that fact has always bothered me. I’m so serious about hand cleanliness that I see this dirt as the single biggest flaw in my MacBook’s existence. I’m not alone in this struggle, as it seems every white MacBook owner that I know has yucky black smudges all over their machines. How can this be? And more importantly, is there anything that can be done to remove it? It’s just hard plastic, for pete’s sake!

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My machine has huge black handprints where the balls of my hands sit as I type. The smudges are like cumulonimbus rain clouds drifting over an otherwise clear sky, darkening not only the plastic casing of my laptop, but my spirit as well. In addition, the trackpad is getting dingy and certain keys are darker than others. There has got to be a way to rid the machine of this filth, and I am to find out what it is.

Experiment #1 – Topical Cleaners

Someone once told me that Windex can clean anything. Well, that’s partly true. It certainly brightened up the dark areas, but didn’t totally eliminate the nastiness. You might be able to walk past this laptop and think it’s looking pretty hot, but once you get to know it a little bit and see it for who it really is, you’ll notice there’s a lot of darkness where there should be light.

Nature’s Miracle yielded the same results – brighter but not better. Nature’s Miracle is perhaps the best cleaner on the planet for getting stains out of fabrics and carpet. If you’ve never heard of it, you probably don’t have a pet, because it’s usually sold at pet stores.

Fantastik, again, same story. Better, but not a complete clean.

Experiment #2 – Rubbing Alcohol

This did a pretty solid job on the keys, as the dirt isn’t quite as “baked in” in those areas as where the hand sits all day. I would likely recommend using it on the keyboard and around the screen frame, carefully, using a cotton ball. It did next to nothing for the deep-set hand prints, though.

Experiment #3 – Goo Gone

Goo Gone can get anything off of anything. It’s like some sort of witchcraft the way this stuff can get mess off of things.

Unfortunately, it did absolutely nothing for my MacBook except leave behind its nasty oily residue that took me five extra minutes to clean off. This was very counter-productive, and a terrible idea.

Experiment #4– The Pencil Eraser

I used to take a knife and scratch the hand filth off of my gray Playstation controller. That now sounds like a terrible idea, so I chose something different… A pencil eraser is meant to lift markings and do it gently. Would it work for this?

It does work really well, actually. There is clearly a difference in where I rubbed with the eraser and where I didn’t. The only problem with the eraser is its path of cleaning is so exact. You have to be meticulous to clean the entire laptop this way, and will likely go through a couple pencils worth of erasers. Or, you know, you could just buy one of those bigger standard erasers and be totally fine. It’s definitely a good strategy for getting the deepest smudges out, as no surface cleaners can dig in the way the eraser does.

Also, watch for eraser dust crap getting under your keys.

Voila, she’s clean.

I’ve heard that Mr. Clean Magic Erasers work pretty well. I don’t have one on hand to try, though, so we’ll both have to take hundreds of blog writers’ words for it. I do have a Magic Eraser Mop, but I’m not about to mop my laptop. That’s just pure insanity, George.

My verdict is use a standard eraser and rub that filth right off your laptop. It’s fun in a weird way, and doubly exciting because it’s probably the cheapest solution. A bottle of cleaner or some sort of cleaning apparatus like a Magic Eraser will run you at least a few bucks, while a pencil eraser can be picked up at Staples for a solid 40 cents. I’m actually quite upset I didn’t try this earlier, as I’ve been struggling with this hand stain dirt for months. It can only be attributed to my loathsome attitude towards pencils…

Chances are if you clean your laptop before it gets to the point of being densely soiled, other solutions might have a greater effect.

But wait, there’s more!

All of this experimentation led to a great cleaning of the laptop itself. What about the screen? They get just as dirty, especially when they occasionally get in the line of fire of a sneeze or something equally gross.

Anything designed to clean eyeglasses or LCDs will likely be a good solution for your screen, along with a microfiber cloth for wiping. The cloth needs to be anti-static, and the cleaner needs to be ammonia-free. Or, you know, Apple suggests using a lint free cloth and water, which also works… but how unexciting.

An LCD cleaner will also do quite a good job on the exterior of the laptop because it’s so shiny.

Those who own Blackbooks may also be victim to oil smudge stains on their laptops. The above solutions should help keep those computers clean and happy as well.

Now go clean your computer, and I’ll see you again next week!

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