Bona Floor Cleaning Products

I was fortunate enough to nab two bottles of Bona's floor cleaning products from Houston's eco-friendly home goods shop, New Living. When I bought my first house down here recently I was suddenly faced with a new substance to clean, one I'd never dealt with before- travertine. Travertine is in most of the houses I looked at down here in TX, at least somewhere on the property. It's common on newly remodeled shower walls, but also in dens/ adjacent to kitchens. It stays nice and cool in the scorching summer heat, so it has that advantage over wood at least. (Had we been able to choose I may have selected bamboo flooring instead.)

Anyway, I have read a lot about ways that different cleaning products can damage travertine, and we already have cracks in some of our tiles from foundational shifting. I wanted to be able to clean this stuff in my shower AND on my floor, and wanted to be able to use my existing microfiber mops.

I tried the spray cleaner first, and was impressed that it wasn't as much of a pain as I'd feared to spray while I walked around the room. I had been careful to vacuum the room first as per the directions, and the floors looked squeaky clean when I was done. (Then one of my dogs peed on them, as it was lightening out and she gets hysterical. Thanks, Mei.)

I was most interested in the floor polisher though- could it really make these tiles gleam? It claimed to provide a protective coating that will guard against damage in the future- that I definitely am in favor of.

The bottle said to keep traffic off the floors for 12 hours after use of the product for best results- and I knew that wasn't going to happen, as our stone floors are in the middle of the house and must be crossed to get anywhere. This stuff smelled a bit strong (I cannot think of what to compare it to), but it did seem to coat the tiles lightly. I'd say I was ... mildly pleased, as I'm not sure the results on my flooring are as dramatic as they might be on other kinds of stone, tile, or on laminate. (It's worth trying on your end, I think.)

I must admit, I am really intrigued by Bona's wood floor polishing products- I love the sight of a gleaming wood floor. I hadn't heard of this line before New Living tipped me off, but I haven't found anything else that even claims to be non-toxic to clean these floors with.

Oh, and my shower? That one was tougher. I gave it a good once-over with the cleaner, but I still cannot figure out how to deal with the mineral leaching (it looks like rust) coming off of the stones. It seems like a combination of their natural properties and my very hard water.

Method vs. Caldrea

I just got an email about the new Caldrea holiday scent "Italian Cypress Pear". I wonder how that compares to the Method spiced pear (which I am currently still using.) Hey, who knew by buying too many cleaning products I could do the whole "stopped clock right twice a day idea" but with Christmas items. Hey, they're in season again eventually ;)

I'm kind of annoyed though- I wanted to do an ingredients quality comparison between the Method all-purpose spray and the Caldrea, and Caldrea's site doesn't list ingredients. Method's claims that the ingredients on the all-purpose spray "include":

"corn and coconut derived surfactants
soda ash
potassium hydrate
biodegradable surfactant
fragrance oil blend
color
purified water"

When I get a bottle of the Caldrea I'll make note of the ingredients.

Am currently waiting on my replacement Kenmore allergen vacuum filter bags. While permanent filters are more eco-friendly, I do love my Kenmore Intelli-clean vacuum (Consumer Reports rated it above the Dysons in their vacuum roundup, and I haven't been disappointed.) People keep telling me if I want my hardwood floors to truly be clean I ought to vacuum them. I'm going to try that as soon as my bags are here (I was vacuuming the other day and then I heard a BAM. Suddenly my vacuum bag light, the "check engine" of the vacuum came on.)