Cleaning Has Come Out of the Broom Closet by Connie Nelson
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
Read it and sweep: Housework is once again making headlines--and not just at spring-cleaning time. A batch of how-to homemaking books, spiffy new cleaning products and tools, plus a sluggish economy and a dramatic increase in the importance of home have combined to make housekeeping a hot topic.
Cheryl Mendelson's Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House, an 800-plus page tome on how to care for your home and why, has become a surprise bestseller. Procter & Gamble's Swiffer--a high-tech mop--has become an acceptable housewarming gift. And how to maintain a slate countertop is now considered appropriate--if not exactly scintillating--cocktail conversation. Cleaning, it seems, has come out of the broom closet.
"Five years ago, who would admit that they liked to clean their kitchen floor on their hands and knees?" said Monica Nassif, founder and president of Minneapolis, Minneapolis-based Caldrea, which makes aromatherapeutic cleaning products. "Now it's OK to articulate--out loud--that you like to care for your home."
Of course, Martha Stewart has been polishing the image of homemaking for years. The doyenne of good things first broached good housekeeping (which had long been a hidden--if not forbidden--topic) in 1991 when she launched her Living magazine. Since then, Martha Stewart Omnimedia has been encouraging us to make gracious desserts and teaching us how to properly fold fitted sheets.
Housekeeping--broadened and repackaged as homemaking--was staging something of a comeback when the economic downturn and the events of Sept. 11 sent Americans retreating to the comfort of their homes, a move that elevated the status of home and, some say, invigorated the fledgling home-care revival.
"Especially now, people are spending more time in their homes, they're spending more money on their homes and they want their homes to look nice," said Dave Glassman, director of marketing for Restoration Hardware, an upscale furniture chain that sells more than 40 home cleaning products.
"There is certainly a renewed sense of home," agreed Linda Hallam, the editor of Making A Home: Housekeeping For Real Life. "You need to be comfortable in your house, and if your house is all cluttered and full of junk, you won't be comfortable."
And there's the scrub. Hallam, Nassif and others believe that because home care was so discounted for so long, many of us have either forgotten, never learned or lost the motivation to clean well. "We've lost what used to be common knowledge," said Hallam "plus a lot has changed. There are new products, new fabrics, new technologies."
It's not as if we haven't been cleaning all along. Even those of us who have hired house cleaners have to do some cleaning now and then. But, for at least the past three or four decades, housework has been equated with drudgery. It wasn't always so.
"Cleaning used to be considered a part of life," said Susan Strasser, a history professor at the University of Delaware and author of Never Done: A History of American Housework. "Now it's considered odious because no one feels like they should have to do it."
But savvy manufacturers are striving to drive the drudgery out of housework while home-based authors and educators are attempting to reestablish the importance of a clean, well-organized home.
One tack is to make cleaning more convenient. A host of new products--such as premoistened wipes, electrostatic dust cloths and microfiber cloths that clean without chemicals--and how-to books promise to make cleaning easier, quicker and fuss-free.
Other manufacturers, however, hope to make cleaning more pleasant by offering tools and products that boast creative designs, fashion-forward colors, natural ingredients and pleasing scents.
"If you're going to clean your house, why not use something that's attractive and fun and works well," said Carol Luckhardt, director of marketing of Casabella, a New York company that sells ergonomic sweep sets, fish-shaped scouring sponges and zebra-print brooms.
Mendelson doesn't say that cleaning is "fun," but she maintains that it can be fulfilling and meaningful. Her book includes an introductory chapter (titled "My Secret Life") in which she explains at length why it's important to keep your house clean: "[T]he way you experience life in your home is determined by how you do your housekeeping."
While Mendelson treats housekeeping as an art and a science, author Gary Thorp takes it to the spiritual plane. In his book, Sweeping Changes: Discovering the Joy of Zen in Everyday Tasks, he explores cleaning as a way of "being in the moment."
"Household tasks can be pleasurable and relaxing," he writes. "There is something soothing about repeating a movement, whether you're sweeping a broom from side to side or using circular motions to dry the dinner plates."
Of course, that won't have everyone racing for a dust rag. Strasser, for one, believes the current interest in homemaking is nothing more than a short-lived nostalgia for a time--and a practice--that is quickly passing us by. "There's a whole relationship with the material world that's changing," she said. "We see the material world as something to buy, not something to maintain."
Michelle Lamb, senior editor of The Trend Curve, a national trend magazine, agrees. "People are staying at home more, but they aren't staying at home to clean," she said. "We want to maintain them (our homes), but we aren't going to clean them. That's work."
Still, Nassif sees that work as a simple way to have a sense of control in our not-so-simple world. "There's this sense of accomplishment," she said. "If your kitchen is clean, all is right with the world."
Resources Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House
by Cheryl Mendelson, Harry Bates (ISBN: 068481465X)
Scribner, 1999
Order this
title.
aromatherapeutic cleaning products
Caldrea offers all-natural cleaning supplies with fragrances from essential oils that include all-purpose cleaner, countertop cleanser, window spray, dish-soap liquid, wood furniture cream, hand-soap liquid, bar soap, hand lotion and linen sprays.
Caldrea
Phone: 612-371-0003
Email:
info@caldrea.com
URL:
www.caldrea.com
ergonomic sweep sets, fish-shaped scouring sponge, zebra-print brooms
Casabella carries a variety of household cleaning products for kitchen cleaning, bathroom cleaning, window glass cleaning, natural cleaning products, storage and organization.
Casabella
Toll Free Phone: 800-841-4140
Email:
info@casabella.com
URL:
www.casabella.com
Making A Home: Housekeeping For Real Life
by Better Homes and Gardens (Editor) (ISBN: 069621203X)
Meredith Books, 2001
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title.
Never Done: A History of American Housework
by Susan Strasser (ISBN: 0805067744)
Owl Books, 2000
Order this
title.
Sweeping Changes: Discovering the Joy of Zen in Everyday Tasks
by Gary Thorp (ISBN: 0767907736)
Broadway Books, 2001
Order this
title.
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