New (and not so new) things at the store

I love Casabella products. Everything they do is so well-designed. Their sponges are attractive, I prefer their microfiber cloths to anyone else's, and I've waxed poetic about their magnet mop in the past (it's the best mop ever, I'm convinced). Anyway, I saw something cool in my local BBB today- a stylish spray bottle with three different types of microfiber cloth in it. And printed on the side of the bottle were formulas for making your own basic cleaning products from simple ingredients. If you happen to need either a spritz bottle, or microfiber products, it's pretty sweet.

I also saw the Method hand soap refill jugs for the first time at BBB- HUGE! If you use their hand soap, this is a pretty good deal. I haven't seen refills this size at Target or Whole Foods. This size doesn't seem to be available anywhere online-apartment therapy only saw it in person at Costco.
It seems like it was much cheaper at CostCo, actually. To my surprise, I like the smell of the Sea Minerals and the Green Tea+Aloe self-foaming hand soap. As a bit of a tangent, the spring limited edition Mrs Meyer's smell- snap pea- smells awesome, really like fresh peas! I'll link to it on drugstore.com, since mrsmeyers.com is no longer selling it.

Method Repackages Omop (And Cloths)

We were just in Target buying a suitcase (all three of ours having been stolen from the storage unit in our building), and of course I had to stop by the cleaning isle. I had read Re-nest's post on the Method aroma pill (which I mentioned in a previous post) and wanted to sniff one in person.

I noticed that they'd repackaged the omop compostable dry cloths and the omops themselves in a recycled cardboard box, to replace the plastic boxes they'd been using! (The packaging looks great- kudos to the designer.) Ironically, they haven't updated the photos on their website, but they did mention the package redesign in their blog.

I also bought one of the glass/mirror microfiber cloths because I am sick of my linty old ones and would like wiping my glass table and mirrors to go back to being an easy chore. I'm going to test out the cloth and see if I want to buy another one or try the Casabella version. (Casabella = 2 for 12.99 vs. Method 1 for 5.00. So far it feels pretty good.

They only had one aroma pill, but I did take a whiff of some new scents for the aroma ring- 'beach sage', fig, and some others I can't recall- which also aren't on the website. ?

Trader Joe's Super Amazing Kitchen Cloths

In my endless quest to waste less I sought out Trader Joe's Super Amazing Kitchen Cloths as paper-towel replacers. (Well, I at least wanted to use fewer of them. I still prefer paper towels to clean up doggie accidents.)

I use my sponges plenty, but mostly to scrub tough goo off the stove or for a preliminary counter swipe. When I'm using spray cleaner, as eco-friendly as it may be, I don't want it on my sponge. My dish towels are meant for drying dishes and hands, so ditto there. My solution had been to use microfiber cleaning cloths with my countertrop spray, but they were a bit heavy and seemed like overkill.

The TJs cloths (which come 2 to a pack for $3.99) are made of vicose, a super-absorbent synthetic material that's somewhat related to rayon. They're around the size of a standard 8.5x11" piece of paper, and feel a bit like felt to me. I hear vicose can absorb 10 times its weight in water? This reminds me of those special swimming towels a friend of mine had in the '80s. (They were tiny and came in a tube. I wanted one.)

The SAKCs apparently come in many colors- ours are a chocolate brown (j. picked them out). I haven't actually washed mine yet, as ringing it out after use has sufficed. It dries really quickly. I am starting to feel badly for its unused buddy.

I wasn't relying very much on paper towels, as I said, but this is an improvement over my microfiber cloths (and I was thinking of going to disposable wipes from those, so the Trader Joe's cloths prevented that transition.)

Cleaning the ol' laptop

As I sit typing this I cannot help but be distracted by the smears all across my poor Macbook's screen. It's time the poor gal got a cleaning. So, how best to do it?

I solicited opinions on eco-friendly laptop cleaning from a natural living community *waves to members* and received the following tips:

1. Clean the screen with a damp microfiber cloth. (This is good advice, and it's worked well in the past.)

2. "For the keyboard, take a toothpick and wrap the cloth around it to get the sides of the keys. To get gunk out of the keyboard (crumbs and things), vacuum it." --sierra81 (who runs a green cleaning company)

3. Use iKlear. (Actually, I have a kit of theirs that I ought to break out and try.)

Apparently, their packaging states: "environmentally friendly, non-toxic, non-flammable, chemically and physically inert, and cannot be absorbed by skin." It's also ammonia and alcohol-free.
ladyceleste added:

"You need to turn it off and let the screen cool or you'll end up with streakyness."'

Oops. Well, therein lies my problem.

4. Of course, if you just want to clean off the keyboard without shutting down your machine (i.e. if shutting down your machine falls under "annoyance" for you as it does for me), there's a cute little donation-ware app for the Mac that temporarily disables your laptop while you clean.

5. Use a touch of diluted white vinegar (from multiple sources). I haven't confirmed this one through testing, but white vinegar is one of my buddies.

I'm sure it'll be a lot nicer to use my laptop in natural lighting after I give it a bath.

Stainless Steel Cleaner

Stainless steel kind of pisses me off. It seems that no matter what I do, it looks a bit streaky and fingerprints easily. My first purchase to try to keep my Simplehuman trash cans looking shiny was a Casabella stainless steel microfiber cloth. I was super excited by the claim that all I need is a touch of water and my steel will shine! (This was my first microfiber cloth purchase.)

Well, it never really worked. For a few weeks I attempted this on my microwave and the trash cans, and then harumphed and gave up on the cloth. When I saw Method's Stainless Steel spray I thought "Hallelujah! Maybe this will help."

The Method spray smells deliciously fruity, and that's nice when cleaning. Using the dual power of my microfiber cloth and the spray, I feel like my trash cans get pretty shiny, but as I mentioned, they end up streaky a lot of the time as well. (I often try to pretend the sides of the can don't exist and just do the top.)

I am thinking that when the Casabella cloth reaches the end of its life, I'll try the Simplehuman microfiber mit. I'm really intrigued. Anyone tried this product? Someone on Amazon gave it 5 stars.

As a parting note, I don't think I'll replace the Method spray when it runs out. It doesn't make enough of a difference to warrant the extra clutter, and I am the queen of simplifying whenever possible.