COLOR CODING MICROFIBER AT HOME

I should really buy stock in Morton’s because I take everything with a grain of salt. If I was reading a blog that tried to convince me that I needed different colored microfiber cleaning cloths to clean my house, I’d assume the person writing it was just trying to convince me that I need more cloths. Of course I am… but cut me some slack, I’ve got a family to feed and I sell a product that’s inexpensive and lasts for a really, really long time. Too long if you ask our accountant.

Kidding aside, I’m about to suggest that you use different colored cloths for different areas and different tasks, but despite what I said above my motivation isn’t really to get you to buy something you don’t need. Our pricing is quantity based, but you can combine colors to get to a price break. So, it makes no difference to us if you buy 5 each of 5 different colors for 25 total cloths or 25 of one color. It’s the same price. So, now that we all understand there’s really no financial motivation for selling different colors hopefully we can put that salt back in the shaker and you’ll continue reading with an open mid.

WHY COLOR CODE?

Color coding is an easy way to prevent transferring bacteria from one area to another. This is known as cross contamination, and even professional cleaners take careful steps in order to prevent cross contamination. Cross contamination causes infections. Preventing cross contamination is a big part of commercial cleaning (in fact, I just wrote an article on the subject for Cleaning and Maintenance Management Magazine). It’s also an important part of cleaning in hospitals and it should be important in your home. Think about it, you probably wouldn’t use a cleaning cloth on a toilet and then go use it to wipe down your kitchen counters, at least not on purpose. But how can you be sure that you’re not doing that? Mistakes happen.

Color coding can prevent that. You should use at least three colors of microfiber cleaning cloths. Use one color in the kitchen, another color in the restroom, especially to wipe down your toilet, and a third color for general cleaning in the rest of the house.

We have lots of colors of our 16×16 All Purpose Microfiber Towels. Pick 3 or 4 and stick with them. While the color coding program you implement can be custom to you, here’s a common color designation:

Red: Restrooms
Green: Kitchen
Blue: General cleaning and dusting

Here’s another thing to think about; laundering your cleaning cloths. We all know that bleach shortens the life of textiles and microfiber is no different. However, bleach is a great disinfectant and if you’re concerned about sanitizing your microfiber cloths you might try using a small amount of bleach when laundering your restroom cloths. Just understand that using bleach will wear the cloths out faster than just using detergent. You can wash them separately or use a pre-wash cycle with a small amount of bleach before adding in the rest of your microfiber. Only using bleach on your restroom cloths will prevent the rest of the cloths from wearing out prematurely.