Hygiene Matters, Green Cleaning Concept, and More

How to maintain effective hand hygiene 

Know when to wash your hands – it’s not just before and after food, or when your hands are visibly dirty.  

Wash your hands properly before and/or after the following:

• Preparing the food
• Going to the toilet or changing a nappy
• Blowing your nose, sneeze or cough
• Handling pets or other animals
• Attending the sick
• Visiting a hospital or clinic.

World Health Organization experts say we need to dedicate about 30 seconds to thoroughly wash the hands, whereas normally we do it in 11 seconds.

Follow the steps below to properly wash your hands:

• Wet your hands and use sufficient soap and water to wash the hands.
• Rub the soap in the palms, back of your hands, fingers and the webbing between fingers.
• Rub with closed fingers of right hand in left palm and vice versa. Also do this for the back of the hands and fingers.
• While washing, ensure to clean fingernails and fingertips.
• Alcohol-based hand rubs can be used if soap and water are not available.

Cleanliness @ garbage disposal

Your garbage disposal needs degreasing and thorough cleaning because of the existence of harmful germs.

Use vinegar ice cubes to do this cleaning task. Pour a cupful of vinegar into the ice-cube tray and fill the rest with water. Put the tray in the freezer and take out when the mixture of vinegar and water become solid. Use these vinegar ice cubes to clean and freshen the garbage disposal.


Home cleaning FAQs

When you call a home cleaning service, you’ll have questions like: are the cleaners police checked, and are they adequately trained?

Answer from Select Clean:

To guarantee your peace of mind, and eliminate any concerns you may have regarding both the safety of your possessions and the respect of your privacy, our cleaners have all been through an intensive selection process and security check to ensure they are honest and reliable.

The SelectClean home cleaners are Franchisee owners who own their business, and so honestly care about the quality they deliver and are professionally trained to carry out all house cleaning activities using latest equipment and products.

Green cleaning concept and Select Clean

Green cleaning is “a marketplace phenomenon that is being driven by customer demand and the overall trending of the broad marketplace for environmentally preferable products and services”, according to the Worldwide Cleaning Industry Association.

Home owners as well as business owners these days are aware of the harmful effect of chemicals used in the cleaning products, and cleaning services that use non-toxic supplies and processes are becoming their favourites.  

The Select Cleaning professionals are very much conscious about these issues. They take steps to reduce the negative impact on our environment from petrochemicals and solvents. However, unlike some other service providers, they don't pretend to be perfect.  The Select Cleaners do their best by reviewing procedures and choosing the most appropriate products.

Select Clean render their meritorious service at Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch. Visit Website for detailed info, or call them on 0800 000 907 for a free home cleaning quote. 

New Trends and Attitude in Household Cleaning and Home Care Products

The year 2016 saw the use of fragrance enhancing products as a key trend in home care sector in New Zealand, a Nielsen Global Home Care Report 2016 said. Very many varieties of fragrances were introduced in premium and blended category to mask chemical odours or add value to cleaning and beauty products. In Asia-Pacific region, respondents were also more inclined to say they’re looking for Eco-friendly all-purpose cleaners, the survey report added. Around 46% of respondents in the region said they seek environmentally friendly products, whereas it stood 40% on a global average.

Large retail chains are popular self-reported places to shop for household-cleaning products, and e-commerce is showing promise, the report further said.

New housing boom is a key growth driver in the home care industry in New Zealand. Retail volume growth of home care industry including home cleaning and other services is said to be moving in upward scale in the coming years as a new housing boom is expected, especially in Auckland, the Auckland Build 2016 Expo revealed. Its estimate says about 80,000 new homes will be built in Auckland itself by 2020.

Unilever New Zealand continued to lead laundry care and dish-washing products in 2015 and 2016, with 35 to 38% share of retail value sales, a Euromonitor study said. Persil brand topped laundry care products with an 18% share of retail value sales. Their slogan “dirt is good” along with ads related to sports like football and rugby gained popularity in every household. Their cleaning products are available in powder and liquid formats.

The consumers generally preferred the incorporation of laundry aids in laundry detergents. The surveys said that it would enable time-poor consumers to rely on an all-in-one product to clean, soften, brighten and remove stains in one wash cycle. This will help the consumers to save money by not buying a number of particular task oriented cleaning products.

However, it’s not advisable to wholly depend on all-in-one products for your home cleaning. To improve the health and hygiene of family members, it’s necessary to call in reputable home cleaners at least on a weekly or fortnightly basis.

Select Home Cleaning Service New Zealand

Choose Select Cleaning’s regular weekly or fortnightly home cleaning service to suit your cleaning requirements and your budget.

Some of the home-cleaning tasks they perform are as follows:

• Vacuuming all the floors
• Dusting the surfaces
• Spot cleaning marks
• Washing all hard floors
• Clean all kitchen surfaces
• Complete cleaning of bathrooms, floor tiles and countertops
• Also do little extra cleaning such as cleaning inside the fridge and oven though they will be separate tasks for thorough cleaning 

You’ll be happy to know that all the SelectClean home cleaners have passed strict selection process and police verification. We also have an up to date training programme on latest techniques of home cleaning.

The cleaners of Select Home Cleaning Company are owner-operators and so you can rest assured that you house, the family members, the pets and plants, all are in caring, responsible hands.

There will be discounts for regular customers in their home cleaning list. Select Clean service can give you quality work output and they have competitive price because they already clean for customers in your area. Their cleaning service mainly concentrates on cities such as Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch. Contact their friendly staff today on 0800 000 907.

How to Handle Chocolate Stains on Clothes, Upholstery and Carpets

Festive occasions and day-to-day events can cause chocolate stains on your costly clothes, furniture & upholstery, or carpets.

Chocolate stain is not an easy customer! It’s called a combination stain. With a variety of ingredients such as proteins, sugar, fats and oil, and tannins, chocolates easily get absorbed into clothe fabrics and become very difficult to remove. If not handled properly, these stubborn stains can spoil your upholstery, clothes and carpets.

Chocolate Stains on Clothing

For clothes with ‘dry wash only’ labels, never attempt to try DIY tips to clean chocolate stains - you’ll have to call a professional cleaning company to do the stain removal in such cases.  

Use the following chocolate stain removal method on washable clothes:

Put the cloth in a polythene bag and place it inside the fridge for 20 minutes. The polythene or plastic bag is used to avoid the cloth getting stained by other substances in the refrigerator. Once the cloth is cold enough, take it out and gently scrape away maximum amount of the chocolate stain with a scraping tool or steel ruler. Wipe as much of the excess chocolate as you can, but always make sure that you’re not pushing the stain deeper into the fibres.  

Next, apply some dishwashing detergent on the chocolate stain and wait for 10 minutes. Now put the cloth in the washing machine and run a normal washing cycle. You may repeat the process two or three times till all the traces of chocolate is removed.

Chocolate Stains on Furniture & Upholstery

Using a small plastic spoon, you can scrape off any sticking chocolate flakes from the upholstery.

Take a container and add 2 cups of water. Mix it with one tablespoon of liquid dishwashing powder. Dip a clean cloth in the detergent liquid you just made. Use this dampened cloth to slowly remove the chocolate stain on the upholstery or furniture starting from the outer edge of the stain. Repeat the dampening of the stain and removal processes till the stain is removed fully.

Next, dip a cloth piece in clean water and then use it to sponge the stain affected area. And finally dry the area by wiping with a dry cloth. 

If the stain is very tough, you may also try putting 2-3 drops of a dry-cleaning solvent directly onto the stained area. After a few minutes, blot the affected area using a dry cloth several times to see that the stain has been fully removed. 

Chocolate Stains on Carpets

If your carpet is stained from a bar of chocolate, it can be termed as dry stain because there is not much liquid involved. In this situation, we can first vacuum the stained area to remove maximum amount of chocolate. But while vacuuming, ensure not to use the beater brush on your carpet because it may grind the stain into your carpet. Instead, use the upholstery attachment to the vacuum cleaner and just make use of the suction of the vacuum to pick up loose chocolate specks and bits.

However, if the stain is caused by wet chocolate, never use the vacuum method.

Next step is to use a towel dipped in cold water to sponge and blot the stain, starting from the outside of the stain and moving towards its centre area. And finally, use a laundry detergent and repeat the sponge and blot processes to completely remove all traces of chocolate stain from your carpet.

So, the chocolate stain removal from the carpet, furniture & upholstery or your clothes is not that crazy difficult to deal with. It can be done in simple easy steps. And let there be Easter, Christmas or any other party time, you can have the last laugh as you know how to remove the chocolate stains now!

The Benefit of Calling Experienced Home Cleaning Professionals

Use effective, naturally-derived, non-toxic home cleaning products as much as possible for home cleaning. The house cleaning charges vary from $15 to $25 per hour in Australia/New Zealand. However, never believe the cheap home cleaning services as they may compromise on quality.

Do you find it difficult to clean your house and the premises because of busy work schedule? Don’t worry; we have many years of experience in dedicated house cleaning in New Zealand and Australia, and can help you out. Book a home cleaning task online today or call us now on 0800 000 907 for a free quote.