Don't want to read? Watch the video of this experiment here.
I have already shown that the Norwex and e-cloth pick up bacteria better than assorted other cloths and wipes. You can see those results on this page of my website. However, many people have asked me to do the "Norwex Raw Chicken Test." Norwex is an excellent line of microfiber cleaning cloths sold by independent consultants. Sometimes the consultants do this raw chicken test at their sales parties. They wipe raw chicken on a countertop and wipe it off with a Norwex cloth. Then they use a Hygiena Pro-Clean Rapid Protein Residue Test Swab
Procedure
First I thoroughly wiped off my kitchen countertop and used masking tape to assign spots for each cloth. The cloths had been washed on a hot sanitize cycle with Norwex laundry detergent before the test. I wet the cloths with warm tap water and rung them out tightly before using. I just got the paper towel damp with tap water for the test. Sorry for the weird angle that I took this photo.
Next, I rubbed the raw chicken on the countertop.
Then I wiped with each wet cloth making 2 passes over the contaminated area. I was careful to wipe the entire area that the chicken touched. (If you are really cleaning up from raw chicken, you should wipe many times and maybe use a disinfectant to be sure. I don't meant to convey that all you need to do is quickly wipe an area twice if there is raw meat.)
Next, I used a Hygiena Pro-Clean Rapid Protein Residue Test Swab I shook the swab to release the chemicals and let it sit upright for 10 minutes to await a color change.
Results
The Hygiena Pro-Clean Rapid Protein Residue Test Swab
Purple=protein detected=dirty surface
Green=less than 20 micrograms of protein detected=relatively clean surface
I was shocked and happy that the results so closely mirrored my agar plate results. The Norwex and e-cloth picked up protein better than the rest. If you would like to buy the e-cloths that I used in this experiment, you can order them here on Amazon I could not repeat this experiment because the Hygiena protein test swabs are very expensive, and I did not have enough to repeat it. I'm happy to repeat it again if someone wants to send me more. I did have 3 swabs left, and I retested Norwex and the cotton cloth again the next day. The Norwex countertop was clean, of course. I repeated the cotton cloth experiment two more times. One time, the countertop was still dirty after wiping with the cotton cloth. Another time, I pressed harder with the cotton cloth and the countertop swab showed that it was clean. These results are similar to my results where I swab surfaces for bacteria after wiping with the cloths. The cotton cloth is never quite as good as the Norwex or e-cloth, but it does pretty good. So, I think you could get clean results with these swabs and cotton cloths if you work at it.
These Hygiena Pro-Clean Rapid Protein Residue Test Swabs
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