Cleaner Glass...Windex

The smells of Clorox bleach, Pine Sol and Windex evoke my mother. One whiff of Windex and I'm back in the baby crib. She's a total clean freak. I still remember when "Soft Scrub with Bleach" came out. She was so excited, happily explaining to me why Soft Scrub with BLEACH is so much better than the plain Soft Scrub they had before.

I grew up thinking that Windex was a verb, as in "you need to Windex the table/mirror/window/sliding glass door". Mom and I could often be found Windexing our Windexable surfaces on Saturday mornings (Saturday was official housecleaning day).

I like a clean house full of clean glass surfaces, too. There are 31 Windexable surfaces in my living room alone. But I don't like the smell of Windex, and would rather use a less toxic product.

The three I have in rotation are: Earth Friendly Products Window Kleener (leaves streaks), Mrs Meyer's Clean Day Window Spray (smells awesome, like lavender), and my recently acquired Method Glass Cleaner. It's supposed to smell like mint, and it kind of does. It's also got that comfortingly blue Windex color... comforting because it reminds ya of Windex. The Method one works the best, Mrs. Meyer's second best, and Earth Friendly "Kleener" with a K is the worst. If you hate fragrance, it's the best, though, because it just smells like vinegar. Unfortunately, Windex works better than all three of these, but I'm not giving up my search for the perfect glass cleaning alternative to Windex.