No More Stinky Kitchen Sponges - Seventh Generation Dish Liquid Free and Clear

My husband is the self-appointed kitchen sponge/bathroom towel inspector. Lord have mercy if he smells anything sour or mildew/mold scented on the sponge or towels. He freaks out as he seriously believes once something gets mildew it can never be rid of the scent. I have tried to explain that I cannot remove the discoloration, but I can destroy the mildew if it happens, but he disagrees. Perhaps he is correct, but I won't tell him all the times I have proved him wrong thanks to kids who did not properly lay out wet belongings so they could air out and dry. However, our sponges, even when I properly rinsed and aired them out, they would get stinky eventually over the course of days to weeks.

Thus in the kitchen, for years I used either the microwave method or a mixture of baking soda, sea salt, and tea tree oil to disinfect my sponges daily to keep from the household upset. Those were the only two things outside of bleach that I knew would work, but I try to keep our bleach use to a bare minimum, as I personally feel it is toxic. Plus the fact that we moved to a remote location in the mountains and we are on a septic system. Bleach is the top enemy of the septic system. :)

Anyhow, I had started using Seventh Generation Free & Clear Dish Liquid Soap a few months back. I had not even considered the fact that I had not disinfected my sponges in months with any of my previous methods. One day I saw my husband sniffing the kitchen sponge and he complimented me on how he has not picked up any bad scents on the sponge in along time. BAM! It hit me that I had not even been trying to keep our sponges free of odor anymore. All I had done was switched out dish liquid. And it certainly was not masking the odor with another scent.

Now I have no idea why this soap has made a difference, but that speaks volumes to me. Obviously something in the formula of Seventh Generation agrees with the sponges or disagrees with mildew and mold. Needless to say, next on my list is to switch over to their free & clear laundry detergent, as I am quite impressed. Did I mention the skin on my hands also looks ten years younger since using this dish soap? Nah, that part is a joke, but just wanted to make sure you were still reading! xoxoxox