What do you use a Wonder Cloth for in the kitchen?

Why grease is the whole story in the kitchen

An ordinary cloth pushes grease along in front of it. You wipe, you walk away, and there is a thin film right where you have just been.

A cotton cloth or a sponge slides over the surface. What you wipe away you are really just spreading out again: a layer of moisture stays behind with the grease dissolved in it, and as soon as that dries you see it back as smears.

Microfibre does the opposite. The fibre is split, up to 200 times finer than a human hair, and between those threads a pulling action builds up. Grease and moisture are drawn into the core and only come out again when you rinse the cloth.

That is why you do not need a bottle for the everyday work. Because chemical products leave something behind, and water does not. There is more on that in why microfibre works better than an ordinary cloth.

How damp should the cloth be?

Just damp. Not dry, not wet. Too wet is the mistake made most often in the kitchen.

Wet it under the tap, squeeze it out firmly and wipe with light pressure. Let the fibres do the work: pressing hard moves moisture around instead of taking it up, and that is exactly where streaks come from.

Fold the cloth into quarters. That gives you eight clean faces one after another, so you simply turn to the next one instead of walking back to the tap. If smears start to appear again, the cloth is saturated. A full cloth gives grease back to the surface. Rinse it out or pick up a clean one, and the problem is gone.

If the grease is baked on, you can add something: a drop of washing-up liquid, an all-purpose cleaner or vinegar. Vinegar cuts through grease well. Leave the harsh stuff alone, because bleach and ammonia attack the fibres.

Worktops and surfaces

The job you come back to most often, and the one where you save the most time.

A lightly damp cloth and water on its own is enough for the daily round. Sweep the crumbs towards you rather than towards the edge, then they stay in the cloth instead of on the floor.

On granite, composite and laminate the same approach works. If you have marble or limestone, do not use vinegar or citric acid: acid damages that stone permanently and leaves dull patches that never come out.

Take the sink and the tap in the same round. Dried-on residue and fingerprints on metal come away without any polish. Dry the tap off afterwards, otherwise a fresh limescale mark just dries back on.

The hob: induction, ceramic and gas

Wipe it while it is still hand-warm. Then you are wiping. Cold and burnt on, you are scraping.

On induction and ceramic glass a damp cloth is fine. The trick is the timing: as long as the hob is still lukewarm, everything lets go. Once it is burnt on, a cloth will not shift it.

Burnt on to glass. This is a job for a glass scraper, held at a shallow angle, and only then the cloth for the rest. Do not scour it with a scouring pad: that puts micro-scratches in the glass, and next time everything sticks in those scratches all the faster.

Gas burners and pan supports. Those come clean in hot soapy water. For the surface around them, reach for the cloth. If a pan has boiled over and it is baked on, the approach is in how to clean a burnt pan.

Stainless steel without streaks

Fingerprints come off in a single pass if you follow the direction of the grain.

Stainless steel has a fine structure, a sort of grain. Wipe across it and you see every stroke. Follow the grain and fingerprints and marks disappear in one movement.

That goes for the fridge door, the dishwasher front, the extractor hood and the sink. Work just damp, follow the grain and dry off with a dry cloth. That drying off is the difference between nearly clear and properly clear.

For larger surfaces one after another, such as a tall fridge door, the iZi-Dry Towel M, 60 x 40 cm is more comfortable to dry off with. It takes up to 800 ml, so you do not have to turn it over halfway.

Kitchen cupboards: high gloss, matt and wood

The more matt the door, the sooner you see a smear on it. The answer there is a lighter hand, not a stronger product.

High gloss. Just damp and with light pressure, then dry off. Never use the cloth like a scouring pad on high gloss lacquer: that is the one thing that really does do damage.

Matt and matt black doors. These show grease marks and fingerprints most clearly, and they are sensitive to products that leave a sheen behind. Water and a damp cloth is the safest route here.

Do not forget the tops of the wall units. That is where grease from the extractor hood settles, the cooker hood as plenty of people call it, the sort you rarely see but certainly smell. There is a run-through per kitchen type at cleaning kitchen cupboards without fingerprints.

The extractor hood and its filter

The outside is a cloth job. The filter is not.

The hood, the controls and the rim you do just damp, and on stainless steel again in the direction of the grain. If there is a sticky layer on it, add some washing-up liquid or vinegar.

The metal grease filter is a different job. Leave that to soak in hot water with a tablespoon of soda crystals. Soda crystals turn grease into a sort of soap that you can simply rinse away. The difference between soda crystals and bicarbonate of soda is set out in soda crystals, bicarbonate of soda and baking soda.

Fridge, microwave and the small appliances

This is where dirt builds up that you only notice by the smell, once it has been there a while.

• 1

  The inside of the fridge

  Wipe the shelves and drawers down with a damp cloth. The cloth does not shed, so you leave no fibres behind on glass and plastic. Take the drawers out and you can reach everywhere.

• 2

  The door seals

  The spot almost everyone skips. Moisture and dirt collect in the folds of the rubber. Work a corner of the cloth along the groove and dry it off afterwards, because standing moisture is exactly where mould starts.

• 3

  Microwave, blender and toaster

  Take them in the same round. In the microwave, dried-on splashes let go faster if you boil a cup of water in there first, so the steam softens them.

• 4

  The oven and the air fryer

  For the cloth, that is the follow-up work. The burnt-on layer itself comes off another way, and that is in how to clean an oven and how to clean an air fryer.

Drying glasses, cutlery and crockery

A cloth that takes the moisture up leaves no limescale mark. One that spreads it about does.

Water left standing on a glass evaporates and leaves the limescale from your tap water behind. Dry straight away and there is nothing left to dry in.

For a single lot of washing-up the Wonder Cloth is plenty, taking up to 7 times its own weight. For bigger batches the iZi-Dry Towel M is more comfortable, because it does not get saturated halfway through.

Are your glasses still cloudy, even after drying? Then the question is whether it is limescale or etching. Limescale comes off with a mild acid, etching is damage to the glass itself and that never comes away. How to tell the two apart is in removing limescale: what works and what does not.

Why you keep one fixed colour for the kitchen

You stop having to think about it. You pick up the yellow one and you know it came from the kitchen.

A cloth that has been round the cooker has taken up grease, and it spreads that as a thin film across your bathroom mirror.

One split that plenty of households stick to: yellow for the kitchen, blue for the bathroom, green for general surfaces and grey for the car. Within the kitchen, many people keep one cloth apart for the bin, so it never lands on the worktop.

The pack of 12 Wonder Cloths is the logical choice for that: three packs of four, enough to keep a clean one in every room. Which cloth belongs in which room is set out in how to use a microfibre cloth: which cloth for which room.

Keeping the cloth grabbing grease

The kitchen cloth is the one that works hardest, so it deserves the right wash.

The full care routine is in how to use and wash your iZi-Clean cloths.

Frequently asked questions