I ♥ Don Aslett

That's right. I love the man. Not that I've ever met him or anything...but I love him.

For 7 years now I've lived in my wonderful house. Seven years of enjoying the pool, seven years of loving the beauty of the countryside, seven years of appreciating all of this glorious (though ugly) cabinet space. And seven years of rust. Despite the iron filter on our well, some iron persists in sneaking through. And so we have rust in the toilets, rust in the sinks, and occasionally even rust colored water.

The sinks drive me crazy. No matter how well you clean them, there's still an awful ring of rust around the bottom. So they never look clean. Enter Don Aslett.


Earlier this summer Josh, the official cleaner of the Ray family toilets, informed me that we were out of toilet cleaner. In due time I searched out Don Aslett's website to order more. While I was browsing all of the fascinating cleaning products on his website I saw something that caused my heart to race just a little. "Shaw's Pads: Toilet Ring Remover" There was no picture, no further information, but they were inexpensive and I figured worth a shot.

Somehow life got busy with vacations and weddings and receptions and I forgot all about the little package of Shaw's Pads sitting on my bathroom counter. Saturday night I noticed them while I was brushing my teeth. It was the night after the reception and two nights after the baptism. Cindy Lynn & Mahon had flown back to Idaho and for the first time in recent memory, I had no huge "to do" list. I decided it was time to see just how well this mystery cleaning product worked.


Since I was standing by one of the bathroom sinks, that seemed to be a good place to start. I opened the package and took out the pad. One side was fuzzy like a chalkboard eraser. The other side was covered with some type of screen. I decided to reserve judgment until I'd given it a try. And so I started scrubbing the rust ring around my sink. Now it's not like I haven't tried getting rid of these rings before. I've used every cleaning product I could think of. I've scrubbed with Softscrub and good old Ajax. I've made a paste of Ajax and left it for hours before scrubbing. I've used Mold & Mildew cleaner and Soap scum remover. And none of them have made much difference. I've longed for the bottle of hydrochloric acid my dad used when he had a custodial business--but have not been brave enough to try to find some.

Almost instantly I could see that my rust rings had met their match. The orange ring around the drain disappeared almost effortlessly, along with the rust deposits on the drain itself. I was so excited that I had to clean Russ's sink too--but I stopped before I was finished so that I could take a picture to show how bad it had been.

The next step was to try to get rid of our perpetual toilet ring. This, too, came off with only moderate effort. It was easy enough that Rachel cleaned the other toilets yesterday, and did a pretty good job for an 8 year old. No, I did *not* take any pictures of the toilets. You can imagine that one yourself.

It is obvious to me that I need more Shaw's Pads. Just in case the ones I have now wear out. In fact, I probably need to include some in my food storage. That way if we have an emergency at least we won't have to have rust rings in the sinks and toilets. I can't tell you the relief this gives me. I just went to Don Aslett's website, and they aren't listing Shaw's Pads anymore. Thank goodness for google--I found another source right away. Believe me, I'll be placing another order.



Thank you Don Aslett!