Most of us like to think that we keep our homes reasonably clean and tidy. Each week you probably run through a list of household chores which you work through in order to keep your home looking its best. You do the dusting and the vacuuming, you put bleach down the toilets, you wipe the surfaces in the kitchen and so on. By keeping on top of the housework, you keep your home presentable.
But if the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that sometimes being ‘clean’ isn’t quite enough. In fact, there are parts of your home that need to be kept sanitized too. If not, you can find your home becomes a breeding ground for all sorts of nasty germs – some of which have the power to make you very unwell.
What does clean really mean?
When you take something that’s dirty – like a plate you’ve eaten off, for example – and you take steps to remove the grease and grime from it, that’s called cleaning. You do it to return whatever you’re cleaning to the pristine state it was in before you used it. So, in the case of our plate, you use soap or detergent to break down and rinse away the oil, salt and dollop of ketchup left behind on it.
Cleaning also helps to keep our homes free of germs, bacteria and viruses. But it’s not quite as simple as just giving everything a rinse now and again.
Why cleaning isn’t enough to keep your home germ-free
You might not realize it, but germs are all around us, all the time. You find them in the air, in soil, in water. Many germs can live on surfaces too. That’s how you can pick up germs when you touch something, and then unknowingly put them inside your own body. For example, there could be germs on a door handle, which you pick up when you touch the door handle and then eat something with your fingers afterwards.
One way to protect yourself from germs is to wash your hands often. But you can’t do that every time you touch something. That’s why it’s so important to keep the surfaces of your home free from germs. Cleaning with soap is a good starting point but might not eliminate all germs. Instead, you need to learn how to disinfect or sanitise your home.
Sanitising and disinfecting: what you need to know
When you clean something, you remove any dirt or grime from the surface. But if you just use soap, you might not remove the germs that live on the surface. To lower the number of germs down to a safer level, you need to sanitise the object. And if you want to kill all germs present, you need to disinfect the object. The main difference between disinfecting and sanitizing is in what you need to use to get the job done. For example, to disinfect an object, you need to use chemicals, such as bleach or alcohol. To sanitise it, you can use little more than very hot water or steam.
It's an important distinction. You really need to take care when handling disinfectant and chemical cleaners. Never under any circumstances mix cleaners or disinfectants together – it can be dangerous. For example, mixing bleach with a chemical cleaner containing ammonia can cause toxic gases that can make you quite poorly. Make sure you wear gloves whenever you handle such products and always, always keep them away from children and pets.
How disinfectants work...and why you might be doing it wrong
Germs, bacteria and viruses can live on surfaces in your home for days at a time. To stop them from finding their way into your body and making you ill, you need to try and eliminate them. That’s where disinfectants come in. Disinfectants work by damaging the proteins on the outer layer of the germ cell, causing the cell to die. From reading the label on a bottle of chemical cleaner, you might imagine this process happens in a matter of seconds. But actually most chemical cleaners tend to need a good 10-20 minutes to be effective. Now, you might not like the idea of leaving strong and potentially toxic chemicals on surfaces in your home for long periods of time – especially if you have children or pets. So, what’s the alternative?
A safer sanitizer: meet the Thane H2O e3 system
When you sanitize anything in your home, what you’re doing is more than cleaning – you’re also cutting the number of germs down to a safe level. Now there’s a revolutionary product that keeps your home not just clean and sanitized, but free from odours too. It’s called the Thane H2O e3. In just 10 minutes the Thane H2O eActivator Cleaning System transforms water and table salt into a powerful home cleaner that cuts through grease and grime, kills germs and eliminates odours. Because it uses table salt and water it costs just pennies for you to make. Plus, you use the same bottle it comes with every time, so you save on plastic going to recycling or ending up in landfill. Best of all, this effective and economical cleanser, sanitizer and deodorizer is 100% safe to use around children and pets.
Discover how you can help keep your home free from germs that make you sick, using the Thane H2O e3, here.