Getting a Little Green – Birthday Week Giveaways continue! Next up – Norwex! {Giveaway Closed}

I’ve written a few times about my “Green” adventures. I’m definitely FAR from a crunchy, granola mom when it comes to food and environmentally friendly products. We do use cloth diapers, but it’s more to avoid blowouts and bum rash than saving space in a landfill. I’m learning about fermenting food for the health benefits, but haven’t been overly motivated to get into it yet. We make our own bread half of the time, but still use the flour from the store (though it is my extreme hope to purchase a grain mill and dehydrator this year to start sprouting and grinding our own grains!). I use my friend’s organic skin care products because they DEFINITELY do work! We also have dabbled in using “green” cleaning products around the house, but more for the sake of my children cleaning safely than anything else. Oh, and I have a whole pinterest board for Going Green – so that makes me legit, right? :D

But not all “green” cleaning products are environmentally friendly and safe for children to use. Though they are “natural”, they still contain chemicals which can be harmful. Using gloves is fine, but when you have young ones helping out with the chores, they don’t always remember – and there’s still the chance of a spill or accidental ingestion, and definitely inhalation!

When we really got the kids involved more in cleaning I knew we needed to change the way we were doing it and the products we were using. For a while I would just have them wipe down the counters with water. But then I was still needing to clean them to remove any bacteria and junk a second time. So we needed a better solution. That’s when I decided to give Norwex products a shot.

I’d actually heard about Norwex 9 years ago from a friend of mine who had tried to get me hooked then, and I just didn’t bother. Boy I wish I had! I’d be so much further ahead in my cleaning than I am now! :0)

So what’s the big deal about Norwex? I’ll let them speak for themselves, then tell you what I think :0) (*I was not financially compensated for this post. I received a sample for review purposes. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.*)

Here’s a bit from the Norwex website –

Our line of cleaning products will save you time & money, improve health, and move towards creating a better environment. Norwex microfiber goes beyond “surface clean” with the innovative use of silver particles integrated into synthetic microfiber cloth ensure:

Single-celled micro-organisms such as bacteria, fungi, yeast, and viruses cannot survive or adapt in silver exposure
Surface-to-surface cross-contamination is eliminated
Rapidly drying cloths prevent bacteria growth in the cloth itself

Cleaning with water only produces a healthy outcome for us and the environment.

Laboratory tests have proven that Norwex antibacterial microfiber reduced bacteria by 99.99% in 24 hours!

Sounds good, right? Well, the main product you’re going to want to get your hands on is the Anti Bac Microfiber enviro cloth – and when they say “microfiber”, they aren’t kidding! Each strand is 1/200th the size of a human hair. What does that mean? It means that the cloth acts like a shovel, scooping up and grabbing the dirt and other junk from whatever you are wiping. Sink, tub, counter, window – you name it, wipe the surface and it’s cleaned! Bonus – you’re only using water!

And you can keep reusing the cloth for the not-so-nasty areas of your home. We use 1 cloth for the bathroom counters multiple times over the week. All you need to do is give it a rinse and rub in hot water after use to open up the fibers to release the junk. The silver in the cloths works to kill the bacteria so you don’t have to worry about that – or the stink :p.

Can you use it on your toilet and have it remove the nasties? YES! But you’ll probably want to use a separate cloth for this and wash it right away. There are no special washing instructions EXCEPT that you do not wash them with any lint-creating laundry – so wash them separately from your other cloths and towels!

Can you use it on the mirrors and have a streak free shine? YES! Paired with the Window Cloth, it will take butter and lipstick (you’re pretty silly if you get that on your mirrors, but the example is a good one :D) off with little effort AND leave it shining clean. Don’t believe me? Check out this before and after of the nastiness on our back door window. It’s spring, and the kids were throwing mud balls :D

Wash, wipe, gone!

Another product we’re using around the home is the Dusting Mitt. First of all, do NOT use those awful dusting sprays! Not only are they filling your lungs with chemicals, they’re also coating the surface of your furniture with them! Think of it – if your kids are crazy like mine, they’ve probably licked the table, bookshelf and dresser before.

Do you really want them getting those chemicals in their mouth? Also, when you use the spray, it actually makes the surface like a dust magnet. So you basically may as well not dust at all :D

This thing works. It picks up and holds onto dust like a fiend! Our house is super dusty (maybe because there are 6 of us in here?) but I notice a lot less dust in the areas we dust with the mitt than when we were using our (ahem) dollar store micro fiber cloths. NO COMPARISON!

These aren’t the only products that are amazing. There’s this cleaning paste. And it cleans your oven WITHOUT the nasty chemical smells or hours of scrubbing. And this descaler which takes water stains and mildew and mold out. And the all-purpose kitchen cloth. And the micro cleaning hand pad (a magic eraser alternative that isn’t laden with chemicals and won’t hurt your little ones hands when you make them erase the crayon map they drew all over the house!).

Ok, enough talk, here’s the giveaway! My friend Barb has graciously given me a set including an Enviro Cloth, Window Cloth, AND Dusting Mitt for y’all to try out!

And because it’s my birthday week, I’m throwing in a bonus, unrelated product that I think you’ll like – we use these fun lunch sacs from itzy ritzy to replace our plastic bags. PERFECT for lunches and snacks to go!