Dust from on high

On Saturday I tackled one of my least favorite chores- dusting places that rarely get dusted. This mostly meant the ceiling fan in our bedroom, which I suspected of being covered in dust and thereby triggering my allergies every time I am in there. I was right. I got out my handy Swiffer Duster with the extendable handle and went to town. It took three duster cloths to get all the dust off that fan, and a fourth to get up above our closets half-heartedly. The dust raining down on me and our bed despite my best efforts was so grim that I had to vacuum afterwards. What a fun chore indeed.

So I was thinking about the waste of all of those cloths, and about Swiffer's being owned by Proctor and Gamble, who test on animals. Properly humbled, I decided to look for a solution to my distance dusting needs. Sure I could use my vacuum extentions, but I actually haven't found that to be a very good solution. Despite the sucking power, I feel like I'm blowing around more than I'm removing.

I already replaced my Swiffer cloths with microfiber ones so hmmmm... one of my favorite cleaning product companies, Casabella, makes a special ceiling fan duster, and although I secretly want one, it is a bit of a monotasker. (Still, look at it! I may actually dust my fans more often with that thing). Their extendable wool duster looks good, but is only hand-washable. (And still, it does look good).

Essentially, Casabella makes a large variety of dusting tools.

Hodgepodge Saturday

I have a few cleaning things on my mind, so here's a potpourri of a post.

1. My current favorite company for wax tart melts is Gramma Frans Fixins. Beware the jumbo tarts! They really are huge, the size of a big muffin perhaps. My favorite are the soy tart cups. Soy wax is much better for the environment than petroleum-based paraffin wax, burns cleaner, and cleans up easier when spilled (with soap and water most of the time!) They have some great autumny scents.

2. I noticed today when I was in Whole Foods that Real Simple has come out with an entire book on cleaning techniques. I must admit, I am curious although I suspect that most of my cleaning techniques are just fine. It has no reviews yet, so who knows!

3. As per my last post about wanting a giant moo-shoo dog on the front of babyganics' packaging, they mentioned that they also have a line called "petganics". It's basically the same products, but with wee little hundchens on the front. So there you have it ;)

BabyGanics

I just finished up a bottle of toxic Windex-like stuff (generic version) that was purchased years ago. I couldn't pour it out, and as it was decanted into a small spray bottle of mine I didn't want to bring it to the household chemical people. Basically, I forced myself to carefully use it up. Much to my glee, BabyGanics' Glass and Surface Cleaner arrived at my house just as I was ready for something new. I just automatically feel better about glass cleaners that aren't dyed blue, and while I was on the verge of just using white vinegar and water, this product was a nice treat (I do wish I had the lavender-scented one though. As regular readers know, I am nothing if not a scent junkie.) I wonder if I could drop some lavender EO into it.

Anyway, this spray worked much better than the generic-Windex. I didn't even know that was possible, but my glass table shined. I stood back from it, looking at it curiously. Huh, I thought. I'd used white vinegar on it and that hadn't created this level of gleam either.

I'm new to Babyganics. Having no kids of my own, there was something about the picture of a baby on the front of the packaging that made me instinctively think "not for me". What they need to do, I think, is Photoshop in a small dog. If the woman were smooching a small dog I'd probably have found them sooner ;) (And if the products came in a bacon-scent perhaps my dogs would help me clean.)

So, you know that I'm a former design professor, right? With that out of the way, prepare for slightly tangential critique. I'm not sure about the photos of people used on packaging at all. I haven't seen studies about whether consumers respond to that- certainly if I did have a child it might catch my eye as I look for cleaning products. On the other hand, I have a sense of products featuring photographs as part of their design as being somewhat less sophisticated. I'm not entirely sold on babyganics' design, and I think I'd add a couple more scents to capture the new aromatherapy cleaning market. Can I pick the scents? Someone needs a "spicy kitchen" cleaning product scent.. something that smells like clove and cinnamon and ginger. Or maybe a "log cabin" scent that's somehow woodsy and smokey and crisp.

So, what do YOU think of the package design?

Trader Joe's cloths part II

Ok, so I have to revise my opinion on the TJs cloths. I do like their texture more for wiping around my kitchen than I did my furry microfiber cloths, but after using one to wipe my trashcan lid I figured I'd better toss it into the washing machine. I washed it on cold and dried it on low heat. The thing shrunk to half its size! I think I may have to supplement these with a couple of Twist Euro Cloths. I've been wanting to try Twist's products anyway. The boxes their sponges come in can be made into birdfeeders. My neighborhood has feral parakeets who survive on birdseed in the winter, so I definitely want to have a birdfeeder out soon. Somehow the "killing two birds with one stone" metaphor seems wrong here.

In other news, I got a box of babyganics' products today in the mail. I can't wait to try them! They look and sound quite good.

Pet Hair Magnet

Seen in Apartment Therapy: Green, the "Pet Hair Magnet".

I want to try that! I use the tape-roller all the time and this looks like a better solution. I wonder if it works on people hair/ lint as well.

Method's omop

When Method's omop first came out, it caused a stir on a forum I was (then) active on. People were gleefully saying that it was a more eco-friendly version of products like the Swiffer wet-jet. At the time I was mopping my floors a lot. I had a wood veneer floored kitchen in an apartment, and my dogs were having a lot of accidents. The way the light from the porch doors reflected onto the floor, you could see every smudge. Filling a bucket with water and going to town just wasn't happening, not with my insanely busy teaching
schedule.

The omop promised speed. It explained that I could merely dribble the mop liquid on the floor, then run the mop over it with a microfiber cloth. There are two kinds of omop liquid: "all floor" (lemon ginger) and "wood for good" (almond). I bought the all floor starter kit in the beginning. The lemon ginger liquid smelled wonderful, and actually reminded me of Thai food. The liquid and the mop worked well in my bathroom. On my veneer kitchen floor I noticed the floor becoming sticky and the mop not gliding well at all. Actually, it kinda skipped around, and no matter how much or little liquid I used, that didn't change. It drove me crazy.

Well, the folks at Method told me to try the wood mop liquid because, as they put it, "veneer is tricky". I loved the almond smell of that version of the liquid as well, but my floor remained a bit sticky. I wound up doing a plain-water with a touch of white vinegar wash, and everything was stick-free and even shiny (why didn't I just stick to white vinegar? I'm a sucker for a gadget.)

In my new place, I'm on the fence about whether the wood for good liquid helps my wood floors or whether it adds a dull sheen to them. I honestly can't decide, which I know is odd. I don't use the omop on my wood floors though, just its liquid with my handy Magnet Mop. The omop does't glide at all smoothly on the floors unless you dampen the microfiber cloth, so I just stopped bothering.

Here's what I do like about the omop:

-use on bathroom floors (I use the microfiber cloth plus the all-surface cleaner, and my bathroom smells nicely of ginger)
-the dry cloths.

Compostable and corn-derived or not, the latter isn't as eco-friendly as I could be. However, when I dry mop with my magnet mop, I want to chuck the head in the laundry machine when I'm done, and even assuming an otherwise full load, that may be a greater waste of resources.

I like the dry cloths. They help me catch all the dust balls and dirt on my floor. I also vacuum, but occasionally I need, well, a quick solution. I'm not any less busy, after all.

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.)