Carmela,

I have spent quite a bit of time over the years trying to clean LPs. (I hope my own, bought new, have been sufficiently well cared for not to need it, but some which I have bought used were also abused.)

I fear that the answer to your query very much depends on how much you are prepared to spend.

Personally, I would not apply any liquid to the surface of an LP unless you also have the means of scrubbing out the residue from the bottom of the grooves. This requires a brush with sufficiently fine fibres to get in there, stiff enough to do the job, but not so stiff that they do any damage.
Some people use a velvet faced pad but the "scrubbing" effect is limited. It will probably be enough for a not too dirty LP.

With a suitable pad you could use distilled (or possibly filtered) water. 

But ideally what is really needed is a purpose made tool, and for the said "not too dirty" LPs I have used a Hunt EDA Mark 6 Brush   Hunt EDA Mark 6 Brush (which combines a velvet pad with soft nylon bristles) with a very little filtered water. Even these simple little devices are not very cheap - but how do you value your records?

If you have something really stubborn Isopropyl Alcohol is the thing to use. Other forms of alcohol have contaminents. On no account use alcohol on old shellac 78s. They can best be cleaned with filtered water and a domestic nylon brush. 

There is a lot on YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If3PYmuelHA
The particulr video to which this link leads shows the use of a Disco Antistat machine which I also use for really dirty specimens, but you will see several alternative approaches on YouTube. I would not personally use the glue alternatve suggested in several of the clips. I have tried it and find that glue residue can be left behind.

Then there are the electrically powered machines that combine scrubbing and vacuuming and cost anything up from a few hundred dollars (or pounds) and go into the thousands.

I am sure this will not be the last word on this and hope that there are some experts on this subject out there - without getting overly technical. I know that there are some sites dedicated to the care and restoration of records.

 

When I worked at Hoyts Theatres in Sydney in the advertising dept, down the hall was an office where they kept the 78's and sent them to theatres.
The cleaning fluid used (and I bought it, I think, from the chemist,) was testrachloride - or something like that. Please excuse the spelling. But it was something like that.

Is it like Sodium Chloride? Which I have plenty of because I had to use it after my operation on my toe.

I had to soak my toe every day with Sodium Chloride Solution. I was kidding about using it for cleaning records.