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I’ve been asking those here at English Blinds who were making Venetians for a living back when I was still going through my goth phase about the best way to clean said blinds, in order to guide our buyers. And those of you who bought blinds from Argos, it’s ok, we’re still friends, I’m not mad, it’s fine.
I didn’t actually know what Zoflora was until I read a Mrs Hinch tip to clean blinds with it; I’d sort of assumed it was like a cross between Jeyes Fluid and Dettol, scented along the lines of some kind of floral toilet rim block.
While I’m not sure that Zoflora would be overly keen to promote my description of their flagship product within their marketing, it is in reality a fairly ballsy disinfectant, and kills 99.9% of all of those bacteria you can’t spell but know you don’t want to catch. Also, it will indeed help you to cover the smell of anything up to and potentially including a rotting corpse, although for me personally, I am not sure that the alternative Zoflora smell itself is a huge improvement.
Anyway, Mrs Hinch loves Zoflora, and I get the impression that I’m in the minority in terms of finding the smell a bit much. So the Mrs Hinch tip for cleaning blind slats with Zoflora is just to fold up a square of kitchen roll and apply a capful of neat Zoflora to it, and then rub it lightly over said slats when they’ve already been dusted.
This is intended to give the window blind a final wipe off, and imbue the room with that distinctive (I’m being mannerly here) clean-floral Zoflora smell that literally nothing else can imitate.
Does this Mrs Hinch tip for cleaning window blinds work? Well, the idea with this is to kind of finish off rather than to take a blind from gross to “garden scented” in one move. If you like the smell of Zoflora, then yes this will definitely make your room smell of Zoflora.
In fact, a great many of the lads in the English Blinds workshop, some that have workstations a reasonable distance away from the Ground Zero that is now “Polly’s Mad Science Corner” know what Zoflora smells like for the first time in their lives.
Whether or not this is a good thing, on the other hand, is getting fairly mixed reviews.
Should you follow the Mrs Hinch tip to clean window blind slats with Zoflora?
There’s no doubt that this Mrs Hinch tip will make your room smell like Zoflora if that is what you’re after. When it comes to our conclusion on whether this will actually clean blind slats effectively or if Zoflora might damage window blinds, there’s rather more to take into account.
For aluminium Venetian blinds (which are painted with hardwearing enamelled stove paint) wiping the slats off with Zoflora if that floats your boat is absolutely fine.
Be aware though that even the Zoflora people themselves advise that neat skin contact with the product can cause irritation, and that inhalation of too much Zoflora fumes might “lead to intoxication;” the bad and dangerous kind, not of the Christmas party kind (which I know, can also be the bad and dangerous kind).
So please, wear gloves when using Zoflora on blinds and don’t go overboard.
Another point you should bear in mind here too is that you might not want to apply Zoflora to natural wooden blinds, or faux-wood blinds. The Zoflora people themselves caution against using their product on polished wood, and while they don’t specifically mention wood veneers, faux-wood, painted wood, or woods treated with anything other than polish as best avoided, they do specify that Zoflora should be diluted before use, and not left on the surface in question for too long.
With this information in mind, we here at English blinds advise against following the Mrs Hinch tip for window blind cleaning with Zoflora.
You can also read how we got on when we tested the Mrs Hinch tip to clean window blinds with a dryer sheet.
