I used to clean every flat surface in my apartment with 409. Hey, it puts grease on the run. How could I resist? But after using it on a beloved antique wooden tabletop for a year, it began to eat away at the varnish. I started thinking, Hey, maybe this 409 stuff is kind of toxic. Maybe it’s eating away at my skin too!
That’s when I went looking for a newer, greener all-purpose spray. I did some casting around for awhile, trying different products, and finally settled on the Clorox Green Works Natural Glass and Surface Cleaner. And after a year of using it, I’m ready to declare it a Green Scheme Success.
I use that one in the middle, the clear one. This is not to be confused the Green Works Natural All-Purpose Cleaner. I decided against that one because it’s dyed green and I have this weird thing about “green” products being dyed green. I mean…it’s not green just because you DYED IT GREEN. Also, isn’t it the very antithesis of being green to unnecessarily DYE something green? (It probably is eco-friendly, but I have my hang-ups so I went with the clear one.)
Now out there in Hard-Core Green Internet Land, there’s a big debate going on about how green these products can be when they are produced by Clorox, a company with a checkered environmental past. But the Green Scheme is not here to debate the relative greeness of products. All products have their pros and cons and those are debated all over of the Internet. (Inhabitat did a good deep-dive into Green Works if you want to geek out on it.)
No, the Green Scheme assesses products on their day-to-day practicality. And this product gets a HUGE thumbs up from me.
I have sort of come to hate our black granite countertops because they show every speck of food and every bit of grime. Sometimes I think if I wrote my autobiography it might be called: My Life Cleaning My Damned Countertops. And cleaning them had been impossible before I found the Green Works spray. The streaks! Ahhhh! They were everywhere!
But this stuff works wonders on them. Just a few pumps, a quick wipe with a paper towel, and voila! Streak-free perfection. Even better, I use it on that beloved wooden tabletop and the new coat of varnish has stayed put. If you’re looking for a new counter spray, give this one a whirl.
I’ll have to try this next. Although I’ll have to plow through my stash of Mrs. Meyers first. I’m infatuated with Mrs. Meyers.
Ooh, I was OBSESSED with trying this when it came out. And I liked it a lot! Now, however, I’m similarly obsessed with Mrs Meyers (I think 90% of it is the pretty bottles) and the Method stuff. Not sure how green either of those are, but I do like them. Might have to give this a whirl again when I run out — I remember it did a good job without BLEACHING MY CLOTHES when I wipe the counters. like the regular Clorox always seems to do.