The great american cleaning products post

There is a back story that is an inspiration for this post... First, take a look at the expression on this face:

What could inspire such a look of shame and guilt? Exhibit B:
I know! I couldn't believe she did that either. Megan is NOT a kid who does things like drawing on the walls. She totally knew better. I was in the other room, and she was coloring on her bed with her lapboard. I suddenly heard this sound... it sounded like someone making huge circles on the wall with a crayon. Knowing that couldn't possibly be what I was hearing, I went to see what it was. And wouldn't you know it...

Anyway, our Mr. Clean Magic Eraser was ready to be retired, so I took the chance to go on an outing with the kids to pick up a new one. I was there in the aisle at Walmart, and noticed their generic brand there, about $0.75 cheaper. I decided to try them out and see how they compared. Then I could report my findings here to my faithful readers!

Here is Megan, using the Great Value brand magic eraser...
What is the verdict? Well, look at the picture below. The left is the GV brand, after about half a use (which didn't really get all the crayon). The right is the Mr. Clean brand, after SIX MONTHS of repeated uses.
Yeah, in this case... Mr. Clean, You are the winner! I will never doubt you again. The GV couldn't even hold up to the texture on the walls, it just got shredded, and I had to really scrub at it to get any crayon up.

Since I'm sharing cleaning product tips, here's a few more I've discovered in the last few weeks.

We have a granite composite sink, which was covered with white, chalky looking deposits when we moved in. Not so pretty, it made the sink look dirty even when it was clean (why, oh, why didn't I take a before picture?) . Nothing I could do would get them to disappear. Then I decided to do some internet research, and I made a discovery.

Baby oil! I just buffed in a few teaspoons of baby oil into the sink, and those deposits were G-O-N-E. I was so excited! It looks awesome. And it smells like babies. What could be better?

Next cleaning tip! This house has a lot of ceramic tile, with a lot of DIRTY DIRTY grout. Our feet turn black from walking inside the house, and it's because of that darned dirty grout. When I first moved in, I thought we had cream colored tile with brown grout. Then one day, I looked at the floor in the pantry. WAIT! The grout is supposed to be white? Oh, nasty. I have tried a lot of different things to get the grout clean. I have tried sanding, bleach and a tile brush, and just plain scrubbing with a wash cloth. All of these things actually work to varying degrees. But then I found a product at the dollar store (my favorite place, by the way), that has completely blown the others out of the water.

I followed the instructions for cleaning grout, which was actually kind of time-intensive. And at first, it didn't seem to work. Then I wiped it all up, and as I was rubbing the grout with a towel, the dirt just melted away. At first, it didn't appear to be much lighter than the bleach did (the bleach turned the grout more yellowy)... I walked away, came back 10 minutes later, and WOW. That grout was totally restored! I was amazed.

I don't have the best picture capturing the lightness of the grout, but you can see above the area I cleaned compared to where I didn't. Now I just have to muster up the desire to do this all over the house. . .