One of the first gifts I got my partner was wood dish brushes. He is quite particular about how clean the dishes are and since I never seem to get them clean enough I am not to do the dishes. Obviously I wanted to support him in dish washing, so when he complained of the hot water on his hands and gross old sponge feeling I knew there was a way to help.

These dish brushes have become so mainstream in the sustainability community I probably don't need to describe them. But I will, they feature a wood handle around a metal center with a wood and bristle head. The round head can pop in and out of the handle making the handle reusable for quite some time. Recently we have come across a brush head with a more stiff wiry bristle in the center - great for tough to scrub spots. We also have a brush specifically for pots that has a knob atop it instead of fitting into the handle, as well as an ovular brush for vegetables.

My partner swears the wood handles keep his hands out of hot water when washing. While he prefers the hard Castile soap Amelia offers we have also used the liquid dish soap as well. The Castile certainly suds more where as the liquid is better for two tub sinks where you may want to soak things (I like to put a squeeze into a dirty pot and let it soak). We also have a counter top dishwasher and have been using the dishwasher pods Amelia has at the shop as well. The dishwasher pods consistently clean and live up to his standards post machine wash- no prints or residue what's so ever.

Now, you are probably asking yourself "if I had all these brushes and soap bars, what will my sink look like?" But I have found the perfect solution to keeping your brushes dry, clean, and out of the way when not in use: a shower Cady. We have a small 2 shelf wire shower Cady on the window above our sink so it drips into the basin. The brush handles hang on the bottom shelf, our pot and vegetable brushes sit on the wires, and the top shelf is often used for drying bees wax or holding straw cleaners, etc. All the brushes are comfortable and accessible and don't leave a mess around the sink. As for the Castile soap bar we have a wonderful angled soap dish platform, It has two prongs at the front to keep the soap from falling off.

All in all we use the brush heads for about 1-2 months depending on wear and tear. The Castile soap is minimum 3 months. The dishwasher pods we have yet to go through the 40 we got 4 or so months ago. As usual with the Ozone all the ingredients of these products are as natural and clean as can be while being super effective. And when the brushes are done we can easily pinch and pull the metal from the wood handle and pop out the bristles on the brush leaving us with compostable wood, recyclable metal, and less then a handful of bristles for the landfill!