For most people, Easter is a pretty nice time of year. Heaps of chocolate, and extra night at the pub and a bonus lay in. Well, not for me. I work in a pub, I eat heaps of chocolate 365 and I don't think I've had a lay in since 1997 - so I can't really remember what one is.

So, Easter looms. I work in a pub and its a busy time of year, people really take advantage of that extra night and the subsequent lay in - and my rota is a little on the unrelenting side. But that's nothing, that's the easy bit. The tough bit come's later today; parental visit.

Unfortunately, not mine. Mine know what I'm like - they expect a mess. The girlfriends parents however have little idea we live like slobs. With her parents working in education, its an early Easter visit from them - taking advantage of the school holidays this forthcoming week. So, in preparation for their visit later today we have a lot of cleaning to do - especially the kitchen. God the kitchen. Its my least favorite part of the house to clean - things are greasy, sticky and I can barely hear the TV. Yesterday, during our weekly shop we thought it best to pick up some additional cleaning products - and as this Cif Power Cream was on offer in Sainsburys for £2, reduced from £2.99 we thought we'd stick it in the trolly. Other than the price, what made me pick it? Well, firstly its a spray. They had a range of cleaning products - both plain bottles and sprays, but I wanted a spray basically for ease of use. If I owned a monkey I would defiantly have it helping around the house - its the least it can do with me providing food, shelter and Sky Sports and even a monkey would prefer a spray bottle like this. There are all kinds of dangers involved in trying to teach a monkey to dilute a cleaning product correctly, not to mention the danger of the having the monkey simply attempt to drink Cif - not so many such dangers with a spray bottle. (idea for Dragons Den; monkey friendly kitchen cleaning products/Film Idea; Planet Of The Apes; The Apes Get Domesticated) Working in a professional kitchen, pretty much everything we use is in spray bottle form. Its quicker, easier and as you don't have to wipe it on its more hygienic - imagine you have to apply detergent to a cloth then wipe on a dirty surface, if you don't clean the cloth before the next application you're just spreading more germs around. So a spray bottle is generally my preferred way to apply when it comes to kitchen cleaning. Other than ease, Cif is a well known brand so you'd hope it was pretty decent and its lemon scented - I don't know about you but there is nothing nicer than a lemon fresh kitchen. I had a quick scan of the bottle before we picked it up - and cutting through the buzz words and what not on the bottle, its basically a degreaser and perfumed soap for your kitchen. This Power Cream from Cif is one of two the brand offer; Kitchen and Bathroom. The kitchen one, as mentioned is designed to tackle grease and the bathroom one limescale - they are both roughly the same price, and if Sainsbury's are anything to go buy you'll find them right near each other in the supermarket.

So, Cif Power Cream. Firstly, this spray is not anti-bacterial so it wouldn't do much to help eliminate the risk of food poisoning at home, you'll need to buy separately for that. As I have a bottle of own brand anti-bacterial spray in the kitchen, I wasn't bothered the Cif was not anti-bacterial. I wanted something I could basically douse down the kitchen with , wipe down and it would leave the kitchen sparkling and smelling nice - and this product pretty much does that.

When you apply it, its doesn't seem very much like a cream but a thick foam. It does stay pretty much where you put it with it draining away a bit but staying long enough to start working. This was handy for me - the taps needed a clean with a build up of dirty and grease in some hard to reach places. Covering the taps in this and leaving it for a few minutes before not only got most of the dirt out but left it sparkling. Its almost satisfying spraying this on and leaving it to do its stuff knowing you won't have to do much scrubbing. As its a degreaser I was keen to coat the hob and metal hob surround with this stuff - hoping it would clean it up nicely, and it did. Infact, its not looked this clean in a while despite it getting a daily wipe down. After it has been wiped down and dried the surfaces do feel nice and grease free and it seems to have quite effortlessly shifted most of the grease - and while this is no heavy duty oven cleaner it does do a decent job on many a greasy surface. Just using hot water will tend to just move the grease around but this really breaks it down leaving little trace.

The smell is maybe the highlight to this product - its very strong and after I cleaned the kitchen my girlfriend remarked how she could smell it from the other room. Lemon not only smells naturally clean, its also a really refreshing smell. As its quite strong and seems to have quite a lot of staying power - its been smelling pretty nice for a few hours, the lemon scent has faded a bit but the kitchen still has a nice hygienic ambiance about it. I'm sure when the mother gets (in a few hours as I type!) she'll have no idea this morning this kitchen looked mostly like a grease ridden bomb site. Cif has hidden pretty much all trace at my past weeks laziness/late night bacon addiction.

Its a pretty big bottle, so it does feel quite good value for money - even at the RRP of £2.99. The blitz it had on the kitchen only use a smallish amount - I anticipate I'll get another 10-15 cleans from this so for about 20p per clean that pretty good. Obviously there are much cheaper alternatives out there but the smell and ohmph of this product make it feel like the premium, branded product it is.

I like this product and will try to keep a bottle under the sink at all times - this sits as part of your arsenal of kitchen cleaning products. You'll still need oven cleaner and anti-bacterical cleaner but to give your kitchen a nice, clean smelling finish this stuff works great. I've only given this product 4 stars as it did pretty much what I expected and there was nothing particular incredible about it. A solid 4/5. As with all products like this, be careful. Don't spray it in your eyes, don't drink it and although it says nothing about monkeys - I would personally ensure they are well trained enough before handing them a bottle.