FlyLady, Clean Sinks and Norwex

Here is Part 2 in “Gretchen’s Journey” where she delves into the idea of cleanliness without chemicals…

A while ago I had several friends that were into following the principles of FlyLady.  In case you have never heard of this fine lady and her site, let me reassure you that this has nothing to do with learning to clean fish.  Instead, this woman runs an encouraging site that helps fellow “SHE”s (Side-tracked Home Executives) to quit procrastinating to move forward to taking the steps necessary to live in cleaner and more organized homes.  One of the ways that her site does this is by sending out encouraging e-mails with steps to take.  As I currently have 3+ e-mail accounts with more than 1,500 total messages, I decided that if I were to get even more e-mails would never get around to actually cleaning.

Although I have not received an e-mail from her, I could tell you her recommended first step to a clean house.  I personally agree it is a good place to start.

Ready ….   Start with a shiny sink!  Since I thankfully do not have a chrome sink right now, I cannot exactly take her advice literally.  For my ivory sink to look shiny, I would have to add LOTS of chemically saturated polish, and that is not what I want to do.  But I do think that when my sink is empty and clean, I do feel happier.  Going to bed with dishes filled to the rim of my sink is hard for me to do.  I do like to follow FlyLady’s general principle, so when I excitedly opened my first box of Norwex supplies last week, I decided that cleaning the sink was the great place to start.  (I will admit that before I could clean the sink I did have to load the dishwasher first. Sigh …)

Here is what my sink looked like before I used the Norwex Enviro Cloth.

And after scrubbing with the Enviro Cloth …

Can you tell much difference?  Me neither.  At least not as far as the sink appears.  Yet how the sink feels?  So much better – smooth and clean.  Fresh.

I learned several things from my first experience with the Norwex process.  First that, while the Enviro cloths are amazing, they are not the only miracle worker.  Effort and time are also important.  Expecting the sink to practically clean itself is not realistic – scrubbing may be needed to see results, especially at first.  Second, for certain projects, I am going to need a little bit more than just a cloth.   This is why the Norwex Cleaning Paste is on the top of list for Norwex products that I hope to order soon.   I have a feeling that once I combine the cleaning paste and the cloth, my silver streaks are going to disappear.  I will once again be able to use my favorite 9×13 silver casserole pans without cringing.  If I can get my sink looking the ivory color that it was always intended to look and not use half a bottle full of chemicals… please sign me up!  Finally, the sink will look as clean as it feels.  In a few weeks, I plan on excitedly showing you the results.

Next week I plan on showing you where the enviro cloths have already made a a noticeable dramatic result in how clean my house looks!  Until then …

~ Gretchen