There are no doubt a hundred and one ways to clean your house. It is about as far from my favorite thing as it is possible, and yet I find myself squaring off with the need to clean. all. the. time. My title says a different way, because I have a hot tip for you. I cleaned the entire mess with 1 main tool… a microfiber cloth. Make that four cloths, liberally given into the hands of helpful children. And water, of course. If you would look under my kitchen sink, you would find that I no longer own Top Job or Mr. Clean or Windex. I have not bought these products for years. Let me give you a little backstory.
It started during my second pregnancy with out of control sneezing. I sneezed explosively for days. (One sneeze or even three sneezes, can feel really good. But try it for days and see if you don’t start to feel whiplashed.) Then the itchy, watering eyes started, and the nose running like a leaky faucet. It was miserable. We thought it seemed like dust irritated whatever allergies I had going on, so my husband bought a Dyson with a HEPA filter. It had a clear canister, which made it fascinating to see all the dust collecting in there, out of range and incapable of harm. If you do not understand getting excited about dust collection, sorry, not sorry. I vacuumed the furniture every week during that pregnancy, and things seemed to settle down, at least at home where I had a bit of control over the dust and its mites.
About this time my mom gave me two Norwex microfiber cloths for my birthday, which in retrospect I see as a most loving gift. I was deeply suspicious about the idea of cleaning surfaces with only water. The cloths seemed a little finicky, what with getting gunked up if you use soaps or fabric softener. I gave them a try, though, and then I used them and used them and used them. Occasionally I panicked a little because I was afraid I had abused them too much, but the care directions said either to wash them in Norwex detergent or just to boil them for ten minutes and there we were! Back in business! Those two cloths were the only Norwex ones I had for 4 years. I didn’t even know that there was a special window polishing cloth available, so I washed my windows with one cloth wet and dried them with the other one. I dumped out all my ammonia and PineSol. Judging by how often I was switching out dirty for clean water in my bucket, I was getting more dirt off my house than ever before. Of course, the people in the house were growing too.
The next place of problems was my laundry room, where the scents from normal detergents would set me off. For a while I used pods, but the smells lingered on the clothes. I started buying everything unscented, but I would rather take my cart full of children through the toy aisle than hang out in the detergents. Just a quick duck in and out to grab my unscented Purex made me feel sick.
In my quest for better options, I stumbled upon Norwex laundry detergent, called Ultra Power Plus. Again, I was deeply suspicious. How could a Tablespoon of powdered detergent clean a load of laundry? (That was early days. I use less than that now unless it’s a mega load.) Again, I was hooked. It worked. It didn’t make me sneeze. It was biodegradable, so my tons of gray water were not killing the environment.
You know what I did next, don’t you? I became a regular. I won’t bore you with my trail of amazing Norwex discoveries, but today when I got an email about a flash sale that Norwex is doing, I thought of all my friends out there who are making a career out of homemaking. I thought of how we sometimes need to work smarter instead of harder. Then I thought it would not be loving to keep to myself a really great deal. There is a flash sale from now through 5 PM Central Time on March 25th. Here is what is on sale and it will bless your socks off:
Wouldn’t it be neat if the gorgeous dishes and the succulent came with it? But it’s the dusting mitt and the envirocloth we want to look at. We use our dusting mitt for dusting, of course, but what I really love it for is to wet it and run it over the window screens. My old technique was to lay the screens on the deck, spray them with a hose, squirt soap onto them, then brush them with a scrub brush to get the dust and “fan circles” (from window fans) off them. My smarter method is to wet the mitt. I wipe first one side, then the other and the thick microfiber picks up everything. I rinse it out, wring it out, and move to the next window. It’s laughably easy.
The enviro-cloth is my top favorite product from this company. It has no rivals, in my opinion. When you wash up a mess on the floor, like a dropped egg, you will feel that you got every little bit of it cleaned up. When you use it to wash your windows, it will clear away grime like nobody’s business. When you clean the toilets… okay, ‘nough said. I will not suggest you slice a tomato on the lid, like someone did.
Alternately there is what is called the Basic Package, which contains the two cloths that you need to clean by far the most of your home. I can assure you that you will never look at window cleaning quite the same way. This is why my children can wash our windows and do a good enough job to pass my inspection. No streaks!
People sometimes gasp and get sticker shock. I understand that completely. When I considered that I used my original 2 cloths for 4 years before buying more, and I started thinking about how I didn’t buy any chemical cleaners in that time… well, it just made sense to continue my patronage. I have crunched the numbers on the laundry detergent as well, and it comes out to the same per load as Tide. Go ahead, do your research, try out an envirocloth, if nothing else.
It’s kind of like having a virtuous charwoman to help you clean. You will start to feel affectionate and protective toward it. You may even want to name your cloths. Of course, if you get your kicks from smelling Irish Spring for weeks, I cannot offer that. I used to love to smell cleaning agents until the sneezing began. Oh, wait. Did I mention that before?
Happy cleaning, however you may do it!
wocket in my pocket 