As you all might recall, I have been trying to reduce the chemicals I buy, reduce the amount of money I spend at the same time as enjoying the whole process of making my own products. I am focusing on the kitchen first and the last time I posted about my home-made endeavors it was to share our very successful washing up liquid. This is still going strong, although I interspersed it with Ecover when I need something which cuts through a heavier grease.
Over the past few weeks I have been trying out various recipes for home-made spray to use on the sides, cabinets and cooker. I really didn’t find any of them to my liking. I was about to give up when, whilst shopping one Saturday, I noticed that some ecloths were on sale, reduced from £9 per cloth to £4.50. I had always been interested in trying them out, but at £9 a cloth it was way outside my budget. As they were on offer and as I still hadn’t found a home-made spray I liked, I decided to try one out. I have since bought two more. They are seriously good.
For those of you who may not have heard about these ecloths, they are microfiber cloth designed to be used with just water, without the need for any type of detergent at all.
How Microfiber cloths work – the science
As the whole point of me researching cleaning products is to develop a cleaning curriculum for my children it is important for me to be able to explain why something works or doesn’t as the case may be. E-cloths are made of tiny, tiny nylon and polyester microfibers, each 100 times thinner than a human hair. Each tiny microfiber is a potential arm to collect up the dirt from your surfaces. In normal cloths the fibers are far thicker and far fewer, which means picking up dirt and germs without the use of a detergent is a bit of a hit and miss affair. With the decrease in size and corresponding increase in number of the microfibers per cm of cloth, the likelihood of every germ and piece of dirt being picked up increases drastically.
As each of the fibers are made of plastic they are able to attach themselves to each tiny piece of dirt using Van der Waals forces (natural adhesive forces between the tiny fibers and the specks of dirt). Whilst these forces per microfiber are fairly week, en mass they are a force to be reckoned with (pun intended!). Bacteria, dirt, germs and dust all are pulled up into the microfibers and trapped there until, rinsed with warm water, the fibers unfurl releasing the captured dirt. Add this to the fact that they do not scratch any surfaces and it my humble opinion I have myself a winner.
And these cloths really work very, very well. They also remain much cleaner than a regular cloth for much longer and are guaranteed for up to 300 washes. I wash mine once a week in the washing machine, otherwise I simply rinse in warm water. This means one cloth will last me 300 weeks or approximately 6 years. Suddenly the £9 price tag doesn’t look so steep, working out at about £1.50 per year! I have not needed any detergent in my kitchen apart from washing up liquid for the dishes. Usually I would buy Ecover spray twice a month at a cost of £2.24 per bottle. This works out at £4.50 per month, £54 per year and over the course of 6 years a whopping £324! And this is just the kitchen detergent. I will say it again, these cloths really, really do work with just water. Go buy one, I promise you won’t be disappointed!
Over the next while I will be looking into home-made window cleaners, trying out the e-cloth window pack and seeing if I can reduce our chemical load even more.
Put some white vinegar in a spritz bottle and, voila, you have a perfect window cleaner. For a non-streaky shine, wipe with newspaper (not that day’s, since the ink will still be fresh).
That’s one of the first things I had planned on trying. I didn’t particularly like it as a spray for the work tops and sink, but I’ve heard it works great on windows!
I love microfiber cloths! Often you can use just water and one of them and it’s sufficient. I do love essential oils, though!
I’d always been a bit suspicious of them. Too many pennies for what is essentially just a cloth. But it really works and is well worth the extra money! I was kind of blown away by how good they were.
Thank you for the tip. I will keep my eye out for them.
No problem!
That’s really interesting. Now I’m wondering if we have any micro-fiber clothes in our house.
Oh, and I’m like Myra I use vinegar a lot in a spritz bottle (well that is until I found out it was destroying my counters), so now I just use it other places.
They really are worth buying – I can’t believe the difference between them and a normal cloth and you don’t even have to press harder or anything!
I always thought those microfiber cloths were a bit of a hoax – thanks for sharing the science of it! I’ll have to check them out.
Let me know what you think.
I use a slightly modified window spray formula – half vinegar, half water and a drop of ecover liquid hand soap in an old spray bottle – works a treat and definitely no smears with a micro fibre cloth (which you can get cheap in Lidl or Aldi).
Thanks for the info about Lidl. I don’t generally shop there because they don’t stock everything we need but it might well be worth stocking up on cloths if there is a big difference in price! I’ll definitely try out the spray. I love ecover products. Thanks Ginny.
I LOVE microfiber cloths. I still use the first ones I bought seven years ago! I use one designed for glass on my windows and mirrors. Works fabulously. It is so much fun finding something that works and saves mucho money. Love these posts on ways to save money. Most of us can use the tips and inspiration.
Enjoy your day:))
Checking to see if I can comment on this post, it’s not letting me on 100 Year War.
I just love reading your blog. I have been stopping by at least once a week since you did the Little House project. Please allow me to give some unsolicited advice: you could really benefit from signing up as an Amazon affiliate. It’s easy and you’ll get a small commission every time someone clicks through your Amazon link. I know I’ve already bought little lab coats and science kits because I’ve seen them here, and now I want these cloths. Please do consider it!
Thank you so much, Mel, that’s so kind. I am an affiliate, but to be honest I barely have enough time to write the posts so I found it really hard to find the time to search for the product and create a link to my blog. But thank you so much for the suggestion. Maybe one day when things calm down a bit….