Things I Love: OCD Clean Freak Edition

On a somewhat lighter note...

For the past few years, we’ve had a cleaning service take care of our housekeeping matters; but after we moved a few months ago, we decided to do the cleaning ourselves.  Through our weekly cleaning binge, I have found a few things that have made life a little easier and/or better-smelling.  (Note:  This is not a paid advertisement.  I’m just a girl who loves some clean.)

The Dyson DC07 Cyclone Animal Upright Vacuum. 

Ohhhh, boy.  This is IT, people.  You will not believe how this thing will make you feel like a bad-ass even while vacuuming.  You might think your floor is clean, or at least clean-ish, but then you’ll take a few passes over it with the Dyson DC07, and you will realize just how wrong you were.  My God, the dirt!  The dust!  The detritus!  It staggers the mind.  And then, with one swift and easy motion, you deposit all of it right into the trash.  Spit spot!  (P.S.  I have not actually used this vacuum with my own hands.  My husband won’t let anyone else touch it.  He will direct me NOT TO VACUUM until he gets home.  That is how much he loves this thing.  But, yea, I have witnessed its power.  And I bow before the Dyson.)

Method Cleaning Products.

I first learned about Method hand soap a couple of years ago in the Consumed column of the New York Times Magazine.  The article was about how this little company had built a big customer base on its neat-o design concepts and its enviro-friendly philosophy.  I bought the hand soap and liked it well enough.  And then.  Oh, then!  Method started coming out with household cleaning products.  And they were good.  So good.  Don’t you want your bathroom to smell of eucalyptus and mint rather than ammonia?  Don’t you?  I know you do.  And to display a nifty space-age dish soap dispenser next to your sink?  You bet.  I keep the Ylang Ylang Daily Shower Care spray in our shower, and it makes our glass tile and shower (stop saying “shower”!) door much easier to maintain.  The one thing I haven’t totally loved is the Floor Care stuff in Lavender.  It still smells a little chemical-ish.  But it still gets the job done, and it beats Mop-N-Glo.

Caldrea Counter Spray.

Yummy.  Green Tea and Patchouli.  In a happy little squirt bottle.  Go ahead, pretend you’re wiping down a rough-hewn farmhouse table somewhere in Provence after a languid afternoon meal of baguettes, brie and Chateauneuf-du-Pape.   Yes, I am buying into the whole product-as-lifestyle thing that I usually love to deride.  But…but…it’s EUROPEAN!  (Ok, no, so Caldrea is based in Minnesota – but the products are biodegradable!  And plant-derived!)

Murphy’s Wet Disposable Soft Wipes

The name of these is kind of pervy.  Maybe that’s why I like them.  These seem like they would be all chemical-y, but they’re “Pure Vegetable Oil Soap.”  So that can’t be bad.  Anyway, the beauty of these is that you dust with them and then the dust stays away for like two weeks!  Since I despise dusting, this is a very good thing.  And they have a nice orange-y kind of aroma.  Yay. 

Swiffer.

Oh, Swiffer!  Why did it take so long for us to make this leap in sweeping technology?  Why did we have to suffer with brooms and dustpans for so long?  Remember how you could never quite chase that last strip of dirt up into the dustpan?  There was always some left behind that the bristles just couldn’t get?  No more!  We are freed from the tyranny of floor grit by this magical device.  As with the Dyson, I love seeing the results on the Swiffer cloth – you can gawk at all the crap it picks up off the floor in that sick-but-fascinated way that you gawk at the towers of blackheads on a Biore pore strip.

So here’s what you do:  you vacuum with the Dyson.  Then you Swiffer.  Then you Swiffer Wet Mop.  And then, only then, can you sleep at night.  Because your floors are clean.  Damn clean. 

Comments

[Jonniker]

You know, I've been disappointed by the Swiffer. Maybe it's because I have a dog and a cat, or maybe I'm just a foul, rank slob, but I never feel like the Swiffer is adequate, even after a solid vacuuming job (and I've considered the Dyson, but I think I'm going to go with an Oreck, just because it's lighter, and I've got stairs). So, as I have ceramic and marble tile floors, I got a Hoover FloorMate.

You think you like the Swiffer? OH MY GOD, the FloorMate. OH MYUNREALGOD. THE FLOOR MATE.

We use the FM after we vacuum, of course, and after we've swept with this crazy industrial rubber broom-like thing that is a GODSEND and kicks the Swiffer's ass.

And actually, now that I think about it, it wasn't the Swiffer that crushed me so, it was the Swiffer WetJet. That diaper-like thing pissed me off to no end, and it just felt like it would NEVER END. The diapering! The brown diaper! THE DIRTY SWIFFER THAT WOULD NOT CLEAR UP.

Ahem. Anyway. I'm now going to pick up some Method products next time I'm at Target.

I, too, am obsessed with cleaning now. I wasn't like this before, but oh my god, I can't get enough. The toilets are cleaned near-daily, and I cleaned the bathtub *again* tonight with those fun little scrubbing bubbles before my bath tonight, *even though* I sanitized the thing last night.

Someone needs to stop me.

[Allison]

I am not a fan of the Swiffer WetJet either. With the amount of hair that lives in our house, it simply does not do the job. I think the diaper like thing is more of a giant maxi pad. Actually, that's what I think of everytime I use it. Which is not often, to be honest.

Method stuff-eh. Okay. I like their hand soap. The green tea kind smells really good. I didn't like the bathroom cleaner that much. I had cucumber that smelled VERY good but didn't do the job like the bleach filled Clorox kind.

I am beyond envious of the Dyson Animal. I freaking want one of those more than anything! Our house is like a giant hairball with 2 people rolled up in it. It's disgusting.

I'm glad you are home because my email box was WOEFULLY empty this weekend.

[lawyerish]

I have not tried the Swiffer WetJet - I speak only of the regular old dry Swiffer. The wet mop is good, but I still do a down-and-dirty, hands-and-knees scrub of our kitchen floors as well. I do need to get some kind of wood floor mopping/cleaning thing, because the Wet Mop (or anything wet) messes up hardwood floors.

Allison, you NEED to get the Dyson Animal. Seriously. We bought ours on Amazon.com - it's a factory refurbished one, which saved us like $100 or so. I refused to pay over $500 for a vacuum. Although now that I know how awesome it is, I would have paid more.

Jonniker, I may have to check me out a FloorMate. Is the rubber broom thing the one they sell on TV? Because I have been tempted to buy that as well.

[Allison]

If the rubber broom is indeed the one the sell on TV, it is well worth the money. We do not own one but I test it out every year at the Southern Christmas Show here in town. The only reason I never buy it is because I don't want to drag it around the rest of the time.

[chirky]

All this talk of cleaning cleaning cleaning. You're a woman after my husband's heart.

Also, all this talk of near-ecstasy while vacuuming and eucalyptus-smelling bathrooms. You're also a woman after MY heart.

I am now off to internet shopping bliss.

[Laura B.]

I would have commented here when then post was new, but I wasn't registered with Typekey yet. I just want to say that I heart my Dyson Animal, too. It never ceases to freak me out when I see HOW MUCH crap comes off of our floors every single time I vacuum. It's disgusting!