This Dust-Busting Trick Is So Brilliant, I Can’t Believe I Just Learned About It

Dusting, like many other homekeeping tasks, is never done once and for all. But there’s something that feels particularly relentless about dust. It shows up within days on a newly cleaned surface, appearing from thin air and coating everything with a film of dirt. Yuck. It’s so ubiquitous that the very act of running a finger on a surface and examining it is the tell for whether something has been cleaned. 

I’ll always jump on any strategy that offers more effective dusting, such as using this dust-repelling spray or dusting baseboards with a dryer sheet. So when I saw this Reel showing a dusting hack, I knew I’d have to give it a try. 

In the video by Danielle Tays, the creator shares “one of the best cleaning hacks I learned online.” Tays’ hack involves putting fabric softener and water in a dish wand and using the dish wand to dust. The idea is that the fabric softener operates just like dryer sheets would, repelling dust and lengthening the time between dusting sessions. It’s like a magical dusting wand!

I didn’t have my own fabric softener, so I borrowed some from a friend, and I ended up using a dish wand with a brush head instead of a sponge because that was the only one I had at home. I filled the dish wand with about a tablespoon of fabric softener and the rest of it with warm water. I shook the wand to mix up the water and the softener, and I grabbed a microfiber rag. 

First, I tried the softener-filled dishwand on my kitchen door trim and baseboards. Because the dish wand was a brush, the softener solution came out faster than it would have if the wand had a sponge attachment. To account for this, I made sure to squeeze the dish wand trigger while the wand was up high so the solution could run down without reaching the floor. 

This minor inconvenience was more than made up for by the usefulness of the scrub brush. Yes, the softener solution would have dispensed more slowly and evenly with a sponge, but being able to scrub dirt and dust from the crevices in the trim was worth it. The brush came in especially handy for the baseboards. I also used the rag to quickly wipe up any excess moisture. 

I also tried the dish wand on horizontal surfaces, including a small table I have in our entryway. Once again, the brush did a great job at lifting the dust that was stuck in crevices — the places that regular “soft” dusting doesn’t always get. 

In addition to the fact that this method cleans and dusts at once and also lifts sticky dust, another thing I appreciate about this fabric softener dusting method is the light scent it leaves behind. With two huge dogs in our family, I’m always trying to layer fresh, clean scents in our home — and this method adds exactly that. 

It hasn’t been long enough for me to tell if the fabric softener does in fact repel dust, but the method has enough merits that I’ll definitely be using it again anyway.