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Doing the dishes used to be simple: You needed a sponge and some neon-coloreddish soapand you could call it a day. Now, the world of the kitchen sink is complicated. There's a whole host of oddly-shaped contraptions for carrying coffee and beverages on the go—contraptions that used to be made of paper and plastic and quickly disposed of, but that now (thankfully) need to be cleaned and reused.
When it comes time to clean all of these reusable vessels, the regular old sponge isn't going to cut it anymore, which is where the bottle brush comes in. Also known as a scrub brush, a bottle brush will serve you well in cleaning many of the narrow-topped doodads we find ourselves using these days, likewater bottles,to-go coffee mugs,andwine glasses.
I first discovered the need for a bottle brush when I used a Chemex tomake coffeein college. I needed a cleaning tool that would fit through the narrow center of thepour-over coffee deviceand that could easily reach into the rounded edges. I bought the Chemex-branded brush and it worked...fine. Oddly, I found it too big to comfortably fit through the opening of the machine that it was specifically designed for. It was pretty though, with a wooden handle and a white bamboo fiber brush. But those pretty white brush fibers quickly turned dingy and brown—and there was no way to replace them.
Since then, I've bought a variety of different bottle brushes and found them all to be lacking in some way or another: They were unwieldy, too large, or prone to quickly getting dirty themselves. And unlike sponges, they weren't inexpensive. I felt bad throwing them away, since they were obviously going to pile up in a landfill and their wooden handles were not meant to be disposable.
Enter theFull Circle Cleaning Sponge. This is, hands-down, the best scrubbing brush I've found. Here's why.
First, and most importantly,the brush head is replaceable.This is the only scrub brush I've found that has a replaceable head, a crucial feature since these things get gross! After all, they're used to scrub dirty dishes. With this brush, you keep the reusable bamboo handle but replace the head as often as you'd replace your regular sponge. (The replaceable heads are easy to order on Amazon, too.)
In terms of length, weight, and overall maneuverability, the brush is also smaller than most models. I've found most scrub brushes to be wildly long, but this one is the perfect size to fit inmy sink caddywithout toppling over—and the shorter length makes it more comfortable to move into the corners of delicate glassware while cleaning. It's long enough, however, to reach the bottom corners of my Chemex, water bottles, and coffee mugs. It's more malleable than any bristle-y brush, and it isn't prone to losing hairs or to becoming misshapen with use. Plus, the handle is comfortable and smooth.
And it's inexpensive.This thing costs under ten dollars. I love to be financially irresponsible, but cleaning products are where I draw the line. This scrub brush gets the job done better than any high-falutin, high-design trendy number (Yes, there are trendy scrub brushes. See for yourself.) One final largely unimportant point? It's cute! It has a nice streamlined look to it, and while I suspect the handle is faux wood, I still love the way it looks—and it isn't prone to quick discoloration.
I've found myself using this scrub brush not just for bottles and similar hard-to-clean items, but on pots, pans, and plates, too. Along with two trusty companions—theTawashi vegetable brushandthe Ringer cast-iron cleaner—you might just have everything you need to do your dishes.
