Erase The Grime

Certain brands establish themselves with such force as to make their name synonymous with their core product. Kleenex. Xerox. And also a few that don’t have x’s in their name, like Roomba, for example. In a way it’s ironic: they command such respect in their industry that they receive the reward of being downgraded from proper noun to common noun.

We mention all this because the term “magic eraser” is, apparently, the opposite. You would think that some company would have sole proprietorship over the phrase and then everyone else would have to say, “compare to so-and-so’s ‘Magic Eraser’ wipes” or whatever on the box. But no! Maybe it’s uncopyright-able due to being composed of two very simple words? Or maybe other brands get around it by inserting a ‘sheet’ in there, like these? Who knows. What’s important to know is that these magic eraser wipes are from Scrub-It, not Mr. Clean.

What’s the difference? Well, for starters, you get none of the eye candy on the packaging, amirite everybody? Like seriously, is there a Mrs. Clean/other Mr. Clean? Asking for a friend!

But, more importantly, these aren’t as durable as Mr. Clean’s. So say many of the Amazon reviews, like this one from user MK:

I’ll start out by saying that I am a clean freak. I love the Mr. Clean magic erasers and use them often. For me, these are in addition to those - not a replacement of. What I mean by that is those are for pretty heavy duty cleaning and are much longer lasting for tougher jobs than these are. Imagine one magic eraser being cut into 4 pieces “the long way” and that’s essentially what you have with these, except they are not quite as dense. These are for light cleaning/light jobs, not including scrubbing or trying to remove tough stains.

So, maybe these erasers are slightly less magical than others. Still, this is a 5-star review. And the bulk of the ratings are positive, enough so to earn these things a 4.1 out of 5 based on more than 400 reviews.

And to be clear, when MK talks about lighter jobs, they don’t mean, like, just wiping down a not-so-dirty counter. These can do some actual work. Or, at least, Pam V. says as much:

Love these eraser sheets. Nice size; cut in half works well and more bang for our buck. I have a fiberglass utility sink next to my washer. It is so gross with soap scum and bits of lint. I’ve tried brushes; rags with powerful cleaners; nothing would clean it adequately. It seemed porous and to absorb the grime.

Weird, isn’t it? How cleaning products themselves can create such a mess? Such is life, I guess. But it’s not just soap scum they work on. You can use them to clean your oven and wipe away the wall scribblings of your child or slowly unraveling paranoid scientist roommate.

But maybe the most amazing thing is–unlike so much stuff we sell where the reviews are basically like, “These are awesome but a little expensive,” and then we get to say, “Not today they’re not!”–many of the reviews comment on how reasonably priced they are. And our price is still well under that reasonable price. Which, I think, makes this unreasonably reasonable? Is that possible?

Point is: they’re cheap and they’re good at cleaning stuff up, so you should buy some.