I broke down the other day and bought a knock-off Swiffer and wet mopping floor cloths. For two reasons- 1) my kitchen is small and 2) the rag mop doesn't get into the corners well without me having to rag-in- hand-and-knee them clean. Pain in the arse. Or lower back. You choose.
Now as we all know, I love nature. I love earthy and wood and fire and water. However, this doesn't extend to flowers. Or rather, flower smells. Ok, so I like walking in nature and breathing in all the scents together. It's stress-reducing and invigorating. But individually? Not so much. I've never been a flower person. I like the idea of receiving flowers, but not the practical application (they're going to die in three days- why did you give me death???) I much prefer a flowering plant or a single flower (that can be saved and preserved in a scrapbook) to a dozen costly pretty red roses of death.
But I digress.
So- I broke down and bought the wet mop cloths. First off, in my ignorance, I didn't realize it was even scented until I opened the package at home. THAT'S how ignorant I was of the whole Swiffer style. (I hear they've been around since 1999. Imagine that.)
Once I opened it, I immediately looked at the box.. It said, 'Clean Fresh Scent!' argh...but I went with it. Alrighty then. And I proceeded to mop my kitchen floor. It worked incredibly well on the engineered wood floor. And I was able to get into the corners to my satisfaction. I did notice their description of a 'clean, fresh scent' was a little off. It smelled more like flowers on a hot, humid day.
Except, for the rest of the day, every time I walked into the kitchen I smelled flowers. I thought, "huh. this doesn't bode well.'
And the next morning. I walked into the kitchen.....and smelled flowers.
EWWWW.....yuck. gross. I can't handle that.
And because of this, I thought, I wonder if I can change the smell instead of going back to the store and trying to exchange something that works perfectly well, I just don't like the way it smells.???
I googled. I searched. I Pinterested. Nada. Zip. Zilch. I did find a way to make your own cleaning solution for the WetJet. But I didn't have a wetjet thingy. I just had the wet mop clothes in a plastic box.
Well, I decided to try my hand at making a new smell / cleaning solution for the mopping clothes I already had. And was I amazed it worked!
Here's what I did:
Rinse. Rinse. and rinse some more.
Basically, I took the top off the moping cloths box, and poured in hot water. Let sit a minute, then poured it out. I did this about 10 times. No joke. Apparently, they really like to 'scent' their stuff.
When I could barely smell their 'fresh clean scent' any longer, I got to working on MY scent.
I decided why reinvent the wheel? I adapted the wetjet recipe from the link above. Except- that recipe used a 50-50 mix of water to vinegar. And I had to make sure that the vinegar was involved, but not overpowering. So I used a 1:2 ratio. I used 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar to 1/2 cup water.
Then I added 20 drops of essential oil (in my case, I used cedarwood) and stirred really, really well. Pour immediately over the rinse mop cloths and you're done.
I then used one cloth and mopped my floor. Ahhhh....immediately a light, cedarwood scent filled my kitchen, my floor got clean, and no streaks! And if the scent lingers like the bad flower smell did, I'm okay with that because I like this scent!
However, I really dislike the disposable nature of the wet cloths, so I'm going to work on making my own. Something I can use and toss into the washer. I've read you can use cheap chenille socks for sweeping. But they don't exactly fit into the plastic container for wet mopping.
Overall, I would call this a WIN!
Love it! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDelete