Smelling the roses whilst cleaning with Zoflora

I am horribly picky about the products we use, in our home for cleaning. I tend to use old fashioned cleaning products, like bicarbonate of soda, and vinegar, or plain old hot water and soap suds, or caustic soda for really nasty stuff like stains on the bath. I am very fussy about smells, a lot of cleaning products may be effective, but their smells are unpleasant, and I tend to avoid buying many brands.

I have a distinct memory, from my childhood, of my maternal grandmother, using Zoflora disinfectant to clean her drains and dustbins. It always made them smell much more pleasant, so using a bottle of Zoflora for various cleaning tasks around my own home, brought back some happy child hood memories, as cheesy as that sounds, when you are cleaning out your cat’s litter tray, having something pleasant to think about doesn’t hurt!

On their website there is an explanation for why Zoflora smells so nice:

“Zoflora’s manufacturer Thornton and Ross was founded in 1922 by Nathan Thornton and his partner Philip Ross. Back in the early 1920s, Nathan Thornton was the Chemist and Works Manager at a tar distillery and ammonia Works in Huddersfield which produced a whole range of coal tar by-products, including disinfectants and soaps.

At this time, the main choice of household disinfectant was carbolic acid, which killed germs but also left behind a horrible smell! Mr Thornton saw a gap in the market, and his special knowledge led him to the development of Zoflora disinfectant – a powerful disinfectant with twice the germ-killing power of carbolic acid, but with beautiful fragrance oils extracted from flowers”

Zoflora was revolutionary, in it’s time, and is still going strong, pardon the pun,  having been invented so long ago. Pretty impressive.

Zoflora can be used for all sorts of cleaning jobs. One of the reasons I like using it, is that when used correctly as per the instructions it is safe to use around children and pets, which being in a home full of cats and children, is important.

When I need to use a proper disinfectant, it is usually for some of the nasty, I’d rather not do it, but someone has to jobs, around the house. Cleaning out the cat litter tray, as I said above, has to be my least favourite job, and it often can be very smelly. The plumbing system in our house is, shall I say, ancient and the drains get very smelly, adding a few drops of Zoflora to the water I use when cleaning these areas definitely makes the tasks more pleasant. Whilst I am a bit of a mad hippy, and prefer not to use too many disinfectant products unless they are really needed, I do like to be able to clean up thoroughly when my family has a tummy bug . Having something that will kill bacteria on viruses lurking when my family is sick, is handy and it smells nice, too, which helps, when the atmosphere is not so pleasant. (You can use your imagination, I don’t think I need to add more detail!)

With summer coming, we dug out our children’s outside toys, this past weekend, to clean and set them up. Some of them were really disgusting, after being sat in the half open to the elements awning, and a fox or two had rather kindly left us some nice little deposits, in amongst the toys. I was quite happy to clean up the mess, armed with my rubber gloves and a bottle of Zoflora. Apparently it is also safe for cleaning unspeakable things on carpets, I haven’t tried it yet, but will remember that, when and if I have to clean not so nice mess off carpets at work, or at home.

I think my gran would be quite pleased that something she used, was still being used today. I always thought she was old fashioned, using a flowery smelling disinfectant, to clean things, but I think sometimes old fashioned is best!

You can read more about Zoflora, it’s uses, safety, and also enter a competition for a pet caption to win some great prizes, here

*We were very kindly sent a bottle of Zoflora to use and review.