What's the Big Deal About Norwex?

December 2009 marks my introduction to Norwex Enviro Products at a friend's house in Ottawa. Her husband, an engineer, was so impressed with them that he dragged my husband (also trained as an engineer) into the bathroom to do the famous 'butter on the mirror' demo.

After explaining the technology of microfiber, Tim smeared their bathroom mirror with butter and then proceeded to get my husband to wipe the mirror off with nothing but a damp microfiber cloth. Amazed at how quickly he was able to get a smear-free mirror - my sweetheart found our new favorite household gadget - one that satisfied both his love of new technology and my never-ending desire to affordably eliminate toxic chemicals from our home. Basically this high quality microfiber works by using fibers 1/100th the size of human hairs to lift dirt and microscopic pathogens from hard surfaces. When the cloths are rinsed, everything is washed down the drain. Any pathogens left in the damp cloths are killed by micro-silver particles built right into the fibers. (Nano-silver particles are too small, and not stable enough for this application. They could release from the cloths into the water system - not a good thing)

Why did we spend money on this product when we could have bought microfiber at any dollar store? The two main reasons are

1. That when we saw that we could eliminate the use of household cleaning chemicals - the financial and speed advantages of converting to the ultra-quality microfiber cloth made perfect sense, and

2. The durability of the more-expensive product appeared to be well worth it. I hate buying things more than once - to me it's just not good stewardship of the world's limited resources, or of my time.