Collection: Cleaning

Reusable Dishcloths and Non-Toxic Kitchen Cleaning Supplies

A kitchen sponge starts to smell by about the fourth day and falls apart within a month, and the roll of paper towels beside it disappears one sheet at a time. Reusable dishcloths solve both of those problems in a single object: wash them, hang them, keep using them for months. That is what most of this collection is built around — cloths and scrubs you keep, a bamboo brush for produce and pans, an orange-oil concentrate for grease, and soaps with nothing added for smell.

The cloth and the scrub

The Skoy Eco Cleaning Cloth comes four to a pack in assorted colors, each cloth 7" x 8" and absorbent enough to hold fifteen times its own weight. Skoy's own arithmetic is that in an average household one cloth does the work of fifteen rolls of paper towels, and that it easily lasts several months of regular use. It goes in the washing machine at up to 190°F, and it stays naturally antimicrobial and odor-resistant because it dries quickly enough to stop bacteria growing. There is an end-of-life path built in as well: run a cloth in the kitchen for a few weeks, wash it, demote it to floors and bathrooms, then compost it.

The Skoy Scrub, two pads to a pack, is the same idea pointed at baked-on food. Each pad measures 6" x 5" and is made from natural cotton and a food-grade non-toxic hardener, which keeps it non-scratching on glass, ceramic stovetops, non-stick cookware, stainless steel, cast iron, porcelain, tile, marble and grout. It cleans in the dishwasher. Made in Europe and packaged in the USA using recycled materials.

Bamboo, and what bamboo needs

The All-Purpose Bamboo Scrub Brush from Bambu carries two bristle faces on one head — soft Tampico for delicate vegetables, stiffer Tampico-Palmyra for root crops that arrive with dirt still on them — and it doubles as a brush for dishes, countertops and appliances. Renewable, USDA Biobased certified materials, no plastics or glues or chemicals anywhere in it, plastic-free packaging. Rinse it, stand it bristle-down to dry, and soak the bristles in white vinegar for an hour when it needs sanitizing.

Wooden boards and utensils that get washed daily dry out and go pale. Bambu's Bamboo and Wood Grain Finishing Oil is aged linseed oil, pure tung oil and pure beeswax in a 4 oz glass bottle, made without GMO ingredients, heavy-metal dryers, petroleum distillates or bleaching. Shake it, wipe it on with a clean cloth, give it ten minutes to penetrate, wipe off the excess. Food safe once dry, and each application takes so little that a bottle lasts.

Nothing added for smell

Unscented Co: four products here cover the sink itself — dish soap in a 25 oz bottle or a 4 L refill box that ships with a spigot, 30-count dishwasher tabs made from more than 93% plant- and mineral-based ingredients and safe for septic tanks, an all-purpose spray for countertops, walls, tile, appliances and sinks, and a hand soap that also comes as a 2 L refill pouch. All four are fragrance, dye and phosphate free, biodegradable and vegan, and none of them has been tested on animals.

CitraSolv Concentrate: the deliberate exception, because this one does smell of orange — it is made from limonene, the clear liquid pressed from orange peel. One ounce per sixteen ounces of water makes a general household cleaner, one per four handles heavy-duty jobs, and full strength on an oven or grill, left for fifteen minutes, lifts burnt-on grease before you scrub. Keep it away from Plexiglass and high-impact polystyrene.