I am a carer and live in Devon with my son Adam, his girl friend Lisa and my best friend Jack, my Ja...
I am a carer and live in Devon with my son Adam, his girl friend Lisa and my best friend Jack, my Jack Russell terrier.
Member since:07.05.2003
Reviews:81
Members who trust:38
Cleaning my kitchen floor is a tedious job I’m not really fond of doing, like most people. Well I’ve seen that product on the telly that you don’t even need a bucket for and you don’t even need to rinse. Apparently you just squirt it on the floor, rub over with mop and hey presto it’s done. Well this I just had to try for my self, as it sounded so quick and easy. The product of course is “Direct floor cleaner” made by that old and trusted name of “Dettol”.
I put it on my shopping list and proceeded to the local Sainsbury’s where I had no trouble in finding it on the shelves. I have also seen it in Superdrug, Safeway and Tessco’s so there is no difficulty in purchasing it. My bottle bought at Sainsbury’s cost me £1.89 for a 1-litre
bottle. This is fairly average with the exception of any special offer there might be around.
The cleaner comes in a tall mid blue plastic bottle. The label on the front has the usual little sword symbol we are all familiar with and it tells you the product is anti-bacterial. On the back it has the instructions for use and warning that it is not suitable for use on unsealed floors. The top on the bottle is one of those little plastic nozzles that you just pull up to open, this opens easily with very little force needed so elderly and weak hands should be able to cope with it. On the very top are four tiny little holes of which the liquid comes out.
When it came time to wash my kitchen floor. I decided to use this so I dampened my mop as told to on the instructions. I then pulled up nozzle up and squirted it on my floor. This bit I quite enjoyed, it makes a change for me to be making the mess on the floor instead of just being the one to clean it up. The liquid shoots out of the top in four streams at an angle so don’t start in the corner or you’re likely to squirt it up your walls. After applying the liquid I grabbed my mop and mopped. So far so good, what a doddle this seemed really great.
Now having done this I was standing there with my dirty mop, so do I (a) put it away dirty, or (b) get out the bucket I was told I would not need, so I could wash my mop. So point one, unless you buy one of their mop’s that take the disposable pad’s you do still need a bucket to rinse the mop in. Hummm.
It didn’t take a great deal of liquid to do my floor but I only have a small kitchen so the bottle should last for quite some time. There for it is quite economical.
On the bottle it informs you that it is formulated to dry in five minutes, this sounded good to me so I decided to put this to the test and set my kitchen timer to five minutes and waited. After my little bell on the timer sounded I gleefully went to check my floor. Ah! It was still quite wet (so much for that claim). I left it for a further five-minute and this time on my return it was nice and dry. So point two it takes between five and ten minutes to dry, still quite good though.
The next test, was it clean? Well in a word NO! It did shift the surface dirt, but no way would I call it clean, in fact I’m going to wash it again. It does claim to kill 99.9% of bacteria, but the air is full of bacteria and as soon as it dries there will be millions of little uninvited guests back on the floor. It does have to be said it doesn’t clean it as clean as with a mop and bucket.
The bottle claims it doesn’t leave the floor sticky so I slipped off my slippers and walked across the room and it wasn’t sticky in the slightest. There was only a very faint smell of detergent to it and this faded quickly.
There is a web site for this at homesolutionsnews.com where they offer to let you print out money off coupon. I tried this but it just went round in circles and I never found it. May be you might have better luck, its worth a go.
Well all in all my personal opinion on this product is, it does clean the floor a little, but not satisfactory in my opinion. You will need the bucket to clean your mop. It’s not quite as quick to dry as it leads you to believe, but it is useful I suppose in certain times, like when you have just washed your floor but forgot the dog was out in the garden and its raining, then it is useful to use with a little kitchen paper to clean little spots and paw prints etc.
In other words it’s a good quick fix. Thanks for reading.
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Advantages: Fast and easy for floors that are all but clean, doesn't leave a sticky residue, dries quickly... Disadvantages: Doesn't remove stubborn marks or stains...
Nov 10th, 2003
very helpful by (100%):
