How do you use microfiber cloths for cleaning your home?

Why does a colour per room work so well?

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

With one cloth for the whole house you walk back and forth to the tap and you carry dirt from one room into the next. A fixed colour per zone solves that, without costing you a second extra.

An arrangement plenty of households stick to:

• 1

  Blue for the bathroom. Shower screen, taps, tiles and the mirror.

• 2

  Yellow for the kitchen. Worktop, cupboard doors, extractor hood and the fridge door.

• 3

  Green for general surfaces. Living room, furniture, windows and screens.

• 4

  Grey for the car. Windows, dashboard and paintwork.

If you want to be able to keep that going from day one, the 12 pack of Wonder Cloths is the logical choice for it: three packs of four, enough to keep a clean one in every room.

How do you use a microfibre cloth, step by step?

Four steps, and you never have to go over anything twice.

Sorted by job, it is all under cleaning.

• 1

  Pick up the cloth for that room. Fold it into quarters, and you have eight clean faces one after another.

• 2

  Make it lightly damp. Water is enough. Wring it out well: damp, not wet.

• 3

  Wipe with light pressure. Let the fibres do the work. Pressing hard is what gives you streaks.

• 4

  Dry off with a Drying Towel. That lifts the last of the moisture and brings up the shine.

Turn to a clean face as soon as the one you are on is full. A saturated cloth gives dirt and grease back to the surface, and that is exactly where those last smears come from.

Which cloth do you reach for in the kitchen?

Here the cloth can be a bit wetter than elsewhere, because you are dealing with grease.

The worktop, cupboard doors, the extractor hood and the fridge door you do with a lightly damp cloth and water alone. Fingerprints on stainless steel come off in a single stroke if you follow the direction of the grain.

On high-gloss kitchen fronts and the induction hob the same cloth works. If there is baked-on grease, add a little washing-up liquid, multi-purpose cleaner or vinegar. Nothing more is needed, and a quick go over with a Drying Towel afterwards keeps it gleaming.

And in the bathroom?

The glass shower screen is where you see the difference fastest.

Taps, tiles, the basin and the mirror you do lightly damp. For the glass shower doors the combination works best: clean damp first, then dry off straight away. Moisture that is left standing dries into exactly the haze you wanted rid of.

The iZi-Dry Towel M is made for that drying off, the Drying Towel measuring 60 x 40 cm. It holds up to 800 ml of water, so it clears a whole shower screen without ever going soggy. Cleaning and drying are two jobs, and with two cloths you finish the round in one go.

What do you do in the living room?

Here you barely wet the cloth at all, and that is enough.

For dust on cupboards, shelves and varnished wood, wring the cloth out until it is only just damp. The fibres draw the dust in and hold onto it, so you are not moving it down to the floor.

The television, tablet, phone and your laptop screen you do the same way, only just damp. The fibres are softer than cotton and lint-free, so you can safely use them on screens, glasses, polished metal and varnished furniture. Do not reach for a dry cloth on those: dry, it feels harder and that is when it can mark something delicate. On fragile or older paintwork, test on a small, out-of-sight spot first.

How do you get windows and mirrors streak-free?

Work in long, even strokes in one direction, and dry off afterwards.

Make the cloth lightly damp with water alone and wring it out well. Then work in long strokes in the same direction rather than in circles: that is what cuts the chance of streaks most. Finish by going over it with a Drying Towel.

Streaks do not come from your technique, they come from moisture with dirt dissolved in it that stays behind and dries in. If the cloth takes that moisture up, there is nothing left to dry in. The approach is set out surface by surface on the pages about cleaning windows streak-free and cleaning mirrors streak-free.

Does it work on the floor and in the car too?

Yes, the same fibre technology, just on a handle.

On big areas a cloth in your hand becomes too much work. The iZi-Click Mop carries the same fibre on the mop head: you take the dirt up instead of moving it around the room, and you do not have to bend down.

In the car you reach for your grey cloth for the windows, the dashboard and the paintwork. Car windows, wine glasses, display cabinets and screens are the surfaces where you see the result fastest, because there is nothing to hide behind.

Which cloth goes with which surface?

One overview, so you never have to stop and wonder.

Why does a set work better than a single cloth?

Because you keep going instead of walking back and forth.

With one cloth you are forever standing at the tap. With a set you just take a clean one and carry on, and at the end they all go in the machine together. That is exactly why microfibre has been the standard in hotels and professional cleaning firms for years: fewer steps per surface and nothing you have to come back to.

You see the same thing in restaurants, cafés, hairdressers and car washes. What counts there is that it is done in one movement, and at home it is no different.

What this saves you

You clean up to 50% faster because you never have to go over anything twice. And because water does the job in most rooms, you buy a stack of bottles fewer: worth more than 100 euros a year in cleaning products you no longer need.

Frequently asked questions about microfibre cloths around the house