The story of a kitchen floor.
When I was asked if I wanted to do a product review for Swiffer, it didn’t occur to me immediately that this particular endeavor involved not only being in the kitchen, which is foreign territory for me, but involved cleaning, which is … uhm, so far into an alternate universe that it may as well not be a part of my existence.
You think I kid?
(Really, Mom, I do kid. I clean all. the. time. I don’t make the poor man I married do all the cleaning. Seriously. And you should stop reading here cause the following pictures will more than likely make you pass out and I can’t be responsible for the sudden decline in your heretofore good health.)
OK, now that she’s gone … I can tell you that I prepped for this review by not cleaning my kitchen floors for more than a week. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, k? Don’t question it. I’m really good at denial.) So yeah, my floors were more than nasty and needed to be cleaned. I had enough cat hair in various corners and along certain walls that I could have made a third cat, were I so inclined. Thankfully, I’m not, because I don’t know how much trauma my Omega can take and not need some kind of kitty therapy, and frankly I’m saving all my pennies for the cleaning service I’m ready to hire. (Mom?!? Get up off the floor – you were supposed to stop reading.)
So when I got the Swiffer out yesterday and removed all obstacles from the kitchen, my floor was ready to be cleaned.
I documented the dirt in my kitchen prior to opening the box: (Mom, this is your last chance. Please listen to me this time.)
In front of the fridge:
Where the garbage can sits:
In front of the stairs:
The Swiffer was easy to assemble, and I noticed that the pads were larger than previous version, which may explain why it claims to clean corners so much better than before (the pads cover the edges now so when you run it along the edge of the wall, the plastic isn’t on the wall, but the pad is.) I had to beat the kidlet back, cause she wanted to try it but I convinced her that Mommy needed to try it first, and really the people wanted Mommy’s opinion, not that of an almost-8 year old.
I started in the corner, and worked my way across the kitchen. To be fair, I have a large tile area, so those of you who clean your floors regularly have smaller tiled areas won’t experience what I did, but I ended up having to use two dry pads during this initial cleaning. Given the state of my floor, this is not surprising; I wouldn’t expect that if I used it for daily maintenance that I would need to use more than one.
The eat-in area of my kitchen yielded this disgusting amount of dirt and cat hair. I’m appalled. It certainly didn’t look THAT dirty. Good grief. (Uhh, can you excuse me for a moment? I think my mom stopped breathing and I need to call for emergency help.)
Once that was done, I took a moment to inspect the floor, and while it wasn’t perfect – it was pretty darned good. I concluded about that point that it is kind of like that shower cleaner – if you start with a relatively clean area, and use the Swiffer on a regular basis then you’re gonna enjoy the results. If you start with an area like mine, or worse, you’re gonna need a little extra effort.
I took a detour, and a break for some wine. Sweeping is hard work, and after all, it was like noon. The kidlet, on the other hand, like the Cinderella she wants to be, used a small portable vacuum to finish readying the floor for the mopping test.
We broke out the wet pads that came with the Swiffer, and I soon discovered something. Those suckers are HARD TO OPEN. Note to P&G: One of those notches on the package, you know, the ones that are on the M&M bags to make them easier to open? Yeah, that’d be handy. I have nails. See, in the picture, they’re pretty, red, manicured? Thanks for noticing 
Well, having nails that are a bit longer makes those packages near impossible to open. I had to dig out a pair of scissors to get it open.
Now the first thing you notice when you open this package is how freakin NICE it smells. The second thing you notice is that you’ve just dripped floor cleaner all over your shoes. Or in my case socks, since I don’t wear shoes in my house. The pad is bigger, and it has a green scrubby strip on one side, so you can get those stubborn sticky things off the floor. The premise is that when you encounter one of these, you’ll utilize the swivel head of the Swiffer and turn it over and around to use the scrubby strip to … well, duh, scrub the sticky stubborn thing with the scrubby strip, blasting it into oblivion.
The scrubby strip, I had to use it a couple of times, and not in any of the spots in the pictures, believe it or not. It works well and does what it promises.
When you can get it into the correct position. Either I am a klutz and uncoordinated (yeah, I am, okay?) or the swivel head is a little too…. swivel-y. It’s a bit hard to control, but once you get the hang of it and realize that you need to guide it with your foot (or at least I did) it is a little easier. I had a hard time with it for most of the time I was using it.
I also noticed that despite the initial dripping-wetness of the swiffer wet pad, one pad didn’t stay wet long enough to complete my whole kitchen.
So I went back around the kitchen and noticed that on my corner rack …. underneath it anyway, there was a ton of cat hair. I stuck a new dry pad on the Swiffer and put it to the test. It got every strand, even those stuck in the curled-wrought-iron-type feet. I didn’t think it would, but it surprised me.
Overall, though I’d rate the Swiffer wet a major success. DaHubby was convinced he’d have to come down and re-mop the floor. I didn’t argue with him, just let him see the results. He was impressed, and as he’s the main cleaner in our house, he’s not easily impressed by convenience products.
The end results: (These are really the before pictures, Mom. I promise. You’ve never seen my house look any other way when you’ve arrived, right?)
The best “after” picture – she’s decided that this her “everyday chore”. You can’t get better than that.
I’d say that makes this product a must-have in my house. (Hey, Mom? This means when you’re visiting and have the urge to clean? These are so much easier to use than the broom and mop/bucket. Think of it as my public service for senior citizens. Why go part of the way with your traditional methods, when Swiffer takes you all the way clean.)
Yeah, I can’t say that last line was an original thought, I admit it was provided for my use if I liked the Swiffer. Since I do, I put it in. Since I do, I’m going to do something special for you, Mom, and everyone else reading. Here’s a link (with special, spiffy ad copy, even) for a coupon so you can get a Swiffer of your own.
Visit http://www.swiffer.com for more information and to save $2 on any one Swiffer® Sweeper Starter Kit!
[...] The story of a kitchen floor. [...]
Like mother, like daughter in the coordination department. I have one I bought some time back and squiggly is the only word I had for it. It is nice and low profile so you can get under and in between with it (providing it decides to go the way I want it to). The dry sheets are great on hardwood floors and tile for removing loose debris and dust. However, unbeknow to my daughter… I gave up mops and buckets long ago and opted for a steamer which leaves no residue and the only expense is water. Maybe the kidlet would like one like Grandma’s?
First of all, as a parent of 6yo, any product that both cleans AND is fun enough that they want to add it to their daily chore list sells me on the product.
I have 1 kidlet, 1 cat, and 1 dog who thinks he’s a cat. I am willing to try anything that can get the pet hair from the corners, which sweeping never seems to and I hate using the vacuum hose to go around corners.
Next on my list? To see if P&G has coupons on their site for the kit. Thanks Pammie.
Nice review. Good info. My favorite part about the Swiffer products is that they are very kid friendly. My 3 year old and 7 year old each own their own Swiffer Carpet flick and use them regularly. Since the Swiffer handles assemble in multiple pieces I can adjust the height of the sweeper for each child by using fewer pieces in the handle assembly.
The freaking nice smell is what sold me too! I have a Wetjet with the bottle of squirty stuff and the sound of the squirt is very satisfying.
I like the idea of bigger pads. I’ll look for those when I need to restock.
Karen, I’m also going to look for a pair of Carpet Flicks for my kiddos. They’d think that was fun.
Thanks for the review, Pam!
Ooooo, shiny. I own a swiffer and have for years. In fact I had to replace my first one because it got worn out and bent. My kids adore it too. However, since we replaced our floor with laminate I’ve been hesitant to buy it because it used to be so slimy (the wet stuff used to leave a film). So it is now for bathrooms only.
I’ve used Swiffer products in the past and still pull mine out once in a while. It’s nice to see new information on the product. I did not know that there were larger pads available now.
One thing that I remember is that if I stored supplies for a while the wet pads would sometimes dry up.
Thanks for the information presented as informative yet fun.
I haven’t tried the Swiffer in a long time but now I will have to try it again!
Hmm, I may have to get a Dry Swiffer–haven’t used one in well over 5 years and the pads were pretty small then and I remember the plastic edge rubbing on the baseboards too. I’ve tried the Wet Jet in the past and was unimpressed by the film on the laminates but a dry one would help get rid of the cat and dog hair…hmmmmm. And by the way, how did you get Da Hubby to not clean the floor for a week?
Great review. Funny I should stumble on this since I just bought the swiffer wet jet the other day – I haven’t even taken it out of the package yet. I found out after I bought the wet jet that the regular swiffer has wet pads now – I already have the regular swiffer that I use with dry pads and I’m wondering if I should just return the wet jet and get the wet pads for my current swiffer instead. Does anyone know how they compare? I guess if the wet pads run out of “wetness” before cleaning the floor I should just stick with the wet jet, since I can “rewet” with that instead of having to use 2 pads. I dunno…it’s all so confusing — easier to just not clean the floor, LOL!
We Swiffer a lot at our house. Much faster than mopping, especially in places like the guest bathroom where it’s a small area. Nice job cleaning, BTW.
I sweep then vacuum my hard floors on a daily basis, go figure. Then I use the swiffer wet to clean up. I love it for cleaning up. I do clean my floors twice a month using heavy duty cleaner but for everyday use the swiffer is awesome. Loved your review of it too by the way! I may have to try the dry ones now.