This Colorful Kitchen Cleaning Tool From Aldi Can Handle The Tough Stuff

Doing the dishes isn't exactly most people's idea of fun. Considering it's one of those home tasks that you can't easily escape, you might as well do the job with a tool that not only works, but is nice to look at. One of the things Aldi does better than Trader Joe's is offer cheerful home products that are amazingly cheap, such as a $3 silicone dish brush that brings a pop of color to your kitchen. The white and green brush has a scraper edge and a spiked edge to get all that yucky stuck-on food off your dishes. And while the tool is tough on stubborn messes, it's gentle enough that it can be used on everything from nonstick pans to your most delicate wine glasses without scratching them. For comparison, Trader Joe's sells kitchen sponges, but you'll end up needing to throw them away after heavy use.

To get the cleanest dishes ever, pair the Aldi dish brush with a grime-fighting dish soap. Dawn Ultra dish soap (also sold at Aldi) works extra efficiently so that you spend half the time scrubbing dishes than you normally would. And since a silicone brush typically won't create a lot of suds due to the material, try dipping your scrubber into a bowl of soapy water instead of pouring the soap directly onto the brush — you'll use up less soap this way.

If you're a longtime sponge user for cleaning your dishes, you'll be horrified to learn that it may actually be dirtier than a toilet seat! That's because the tiny holes in kitchen sponges can hold water, food, and dirt, creating the perfect set up for bacterial growth. A study by the National Science Foundation discovered that 75% of the household sponges and dishcloths had Coliform bacteria on them, and that scrubbing harder freed even more bacteria and transferred it to the surface being cleaned. 

A silicone dish scrubbing tool can't hold onto bacteria in the same way since it's non-porous. While you can use your microwave to sanitize your kitchen sponge, silicone kitchen scrubbers are dishwasher-friendly, so you can throw them in with the dishes you don't feel like hand-washing. No dishwasher? No problem — you can also clean your silicone dish scrubber in a pot of boiling water. Sponges frequently need to be tossed, making a silicone dish tool more environmentally-friendly.

All of this is not to say silicone dish scrubbers are perfect. You may find that the soap slides more easily off of silicone while you're scrubbing, meaning you may have to use more soap than usual. Silicone also isn't the best material for wiping down counters. Silicone sponges do have additional uses, though. They're known to be great at cleaning up pet hair or lint — though it's probably a good idea to have a separate scrubber just for this job!