I have been known to say, “If you don’t get started, you will never get done!” This is true about many things in life and especially true about spring cleaning. I grew up on a farm where we had a row of beautiful lilac bushes. Each spring they were one of the first flowers to bloom. Their beauty and scent not only reminds me of the spring but also the time to get spring cleaning. The kitchen is the best place to start because it is the high-traffic hub of our homes where we gather for meals, smell coffee in the morning, share stories of the day to connect with our family and of course where we raid the pantry.
Also, it is a place where we work hard and make our appliances work harder, often feel crumbs beneath our feet, know there are forgotten spills, crusted-on spots and greasy areas. For all these reasons, we will start spring cleaning our kitchens.
Cupboard Tops – Attach your EnviroWand to the Mop System handle and bend your EnviroWand to the width of your cupboards, spray the thick tassel side of the wand with 2 squirts of water and wipe across the tops of your cupboards. For heavy grease spots, use a dab of Cleaning Paste and scrub with a Spirisponge and wipe with a well-wrung EnviroCloth. Done!
Cupboard Doors – Use your EnviroCloth to wipe down the fronts, backs, sides and knobs. If you have debris in the nooks and crannies, use the sharp Spirisponge edge to loosen and simply wipe off. Finish by polishing your door fronts with a Window Cloth. Done!
Cupboards – This spring break I enlisted my girls for help! I asked them to choose two cupboards per day to clean. They chose to work from smallest to largest!!! They did a fantastic job with just water and an EnviroCloth. I will give you the same instructions I gave them:
Remove Items.
Discard expired items.
Recycle any empty containers.
Wipe down cupboard shelves, edges and walls with a well-wrung EnviroCloth.
To remove scuff marks, cut a small square of the Micro Clean Hand Pad and give it a scrub. Wipe clean with an EnviroCloth.
Replace items.
Repeat.
Done!
Tip for utensil drawers:
Vacuum drawer after removing utensils.
Use a Micro Clean Hand Pad to remove scuffs in your utensil try and wipe clean with an EnviroCloth. Done!
4. Back Splash & Counter Top – Remove items from your kitchen counter. Wipe your back splash and counter tops with a well-wrung EnviroCloth. If your grout is grungy use a dab of Clean Paste and scrub with a Spirisponge, wipe clean with EnviroCloth. Done!
5. Sink – Clean the sink basin with a dab of Cleaning Paste and the scrub with a Spirisponge. Spray the edge around your sink and the base of your faucet with Descaler. Let sit for a few minutes and scrub with an old toothbrush. Wipe clean with an EnviroCloth. Pour two tablespoons of Descaler into a plastic baggie and submerge faucet head, secure with an elastic. Let sit for a few hours. Use the sharp Spirisponge edge to remove build up. Wipe down sink and faucet with EnviroCloth. It will smile back at you. Done!
Now go out and enjoy the spring flowers, you have accomplished the start of your spring clean! Check back next week when we will tackle the home appliances.
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Delores VandenBoogaard is an Independent Norwex Sales Consultant from Edmonton, Alberta Canada with customers and consultants throughout Canada and the United States including; New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, North West Territories and Ontario. She also has customers and team members in; Michigan, Texas, California, Massachusetts, Florida, Arizona, Missouri, Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, Idaho, Washington, New Hampshire, Iowa and Maine.
Getting all of the surfaces in your home as clean as possible, as quickly as possible, can be challenging. In addition, many of today’s popular cleaners contain harsh chemicals. One would assume that since they are sold in our local stores that they were tested and are safe to use.
I was shocked to learn that; “About 80,000 new chemicals have been introduced into the environment in the last 50 years. Sadly, only about 200 of these have ever been assessed for their impact on human health.” Bjorn Nicolaisen (co-founder of Norwex)
When first introduced to Norwex, I was intrigued and excited, but my husband was the skeptic. Hearing that Norwex EnviroCloths could clean the surfaces in my home without the need for additional chemical cleaning products was foreign to me. On top of that, the claim that I could clean my home in a quarter of the time seemed too good to be true. But, I loved a clean home and was more than willing to remove the chemical cleaning products from where I was raising my young family.
What differentiates the two is how “micro” the fibers in the Norwex cloth are. The cloths available at your local store generally have a fiber size of approximately 1/6 the size of a human hair while the EnviroCloth fibers are 1/200th the diameter of a human hair. It is how “micro” the fibers are that determines the cleaning ability of your cloth. If we were to completely unravel an EnviroCloth, the 2.9 million meters of microfiber would reach all the way from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada right down to the Gulf of Mexico!
As incredible as that is, there is still more cleaning ability contained within the cloth! The Envirocloth has BacLock™ in the cloth – micro silver antibacterial agent – that goes to work to self-purify and inhibit odors from bacteria, mold and mildew growth within the cloth. This self-purification process ensures the cloth is ready to use again within 24 hours.
The Norwex Microfiber has the ability to remove up to 99% of bacteria from a surface when following the proper care and use instructions. The super-absorbent cloths pick up and trap everything that was on the surface until you rinse it out.
Our family was totally sold on the Norwex product collection when we learned the cloths were already being used to clean hospitals. It was this simple; if these cloths cleaned to a level high enough to pass the stringent testing required to be used at the hospital, they certainly were good enough for our home!
Key Benefits:
Cuts cleaning time by up to 75% by using only water.
No need for harmful chemicals.
Saves money by using only water.
Eliminates the need for paper towels, creating less waste.
Used them dry for dusting, it creates static electricity that lifts the smallest particles of dust and dirt up into the cloth and prevents them from resettling on the surfaces.
Did You Know?
Norwex Microfiber products are created in state-of-the-art factories with optimal working conditions. Check out my posts about China.
Most paper towels are bleached and then patterned with dyes. Drying your hands with them can leave your skin rough and cracked.
Warranty:
Two Year Warranty
60-Day Money Back Guarantee
As a leader, I was very selective in naming our Team. My group of consultants are located throughout North America are called: “The Solution Team.” Norwex is the solution! You’ll clean safely, quickly and thoroughly, using super-absorbent EnviroCloths. You’ll save time, money and the environment by using only water to clean your home. You will reduce landfill waste, prevent chemicals from getting into our waterways and protect your family’s health as you minimize dust, allergens and chemicals in your home!
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Delores VandenBoogaard is an Independent Norwex Sales Consultant from Edmonton, Alberta Canada with customers and consultants throughout Canada and the United States including; New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, North West Territories and Ontario. She also has customers and team members in; Michigan, Texas, California, Massachusetts, Florida, Arizona, Missouri, Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, Idaho, Washington, New Hampshire, Iowa and Maine.
Do you like systems and organization? I do! I encourage my customers to color-code the microfiber cloths in their home. When Norwex lovers are asked what is their favorite product, it is predominantly the EnviroCloth! This cloth literally cleans up everything and it works amazing… with only water, so there’s no harmful chemical residue left behind– just the real clean.
Since the cloths come in four colors, I have always color-coded our home and have taught my customers to do the same. It’s a simple system:
Redis our go-to kitchen-cloth. It’s used for 2-3 days to wipe down the: counters, stove, microwave, exterior of the fridge and interior plexiglass shelving, the table after each meal, finger prints on the dishwasher and watermarks on the facet and in the sink! This hard-working cloth absorbs spilled tomato sauce, burnt on food, spilled milk or grape juice. Because you cannot bleach your Norwex cloths, red is a great color to camouflage any accidental staining from your daily kitchen activities!
Blue is the designated color for any heavy cleaning project. It lives under the kitchen sink and is pulled out for, wiping the floor when unexpected spills happen, cleaning the very dirty patio furniture, wiping the BBQ or oven, detailing the car, or washing outdoor windows. This way, one cloth does all the extra dirty work, instead of potentially staining every cloth you own!
Greencloths are used to maintain our bathrooms. Years ago we would squeegee our shower, but inevitably the doors and walls still got very grungy. Now, after each shower we quickly wipe down the shower stall to prevent soap scum and mineral deposits. In 10 years since our family was first introduced to Norwex, we have not sprayed any toxic cleaning chemical in our shower. That said, I don’t expect my family to deep clean after each shower. So we do use DeScaler for maintaining the tub and floor weekly. One green EnviroCloth wipes up the shower walls, bathroom counter and mirror for a week. Take a cleaning moment and you won’t need a cleaning day!
Yellowcloths are used for cleaning the toilets. Norwex has an excellent cleaner for inside the toilets, but this cloth is used for detailing the porcelain and seat. It hangs on the plumbing under each bathroom sink. It’s always handy if needed.
Friday is Norwex laundry day at our home and with this cloth system it is very simple. After the cloths come out of the dryer, each cloth is put back where it belongs. Only the Red cloths are folded and returned to the kitchen drawer, the rest are all returned to be used as intended in their designated areas for another week… until they are laundered again.
At my shows everyone laughs when I ask, “Now what would you be thinking if you found a yellow cloth on my counter when you come over for coffee?” : ) See… the system works! Everything stays where it belongs! Simplicity my friends!
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Delores VandenBoogaard is an Independent Norwex Sales Consultant from Edmonton, Alberta Canada with customers and consultants throughout Canada and the United States including; New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, North West Territories and Ontario. She also has customers and team members in; Michigan, Texas, California, Massachusetts, Florida, Arizona, Missouri, Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, Idaho, Washington, New Hampshire, Iowa and Maine.
