Product Update

By 13 commentsCategory: Q&A with Shane

Hope this shout-out is finding everyone healthy; and to all you Moms out there – Happy Mother’s Day! Just letting everyone know that we’ve put Surface Cleaner Gallon Size back into our available stock – you can find it here – GALLON SIZE SURFACE CLEANER.

Here’s a little tip I use with my surface cleaner – I like my wipes very wet, so I take one canister of my Hand Sanitizer wipes and pour additional Surface Cleaner into it and shake it up each time I use it around the house. It goes a LONG WAY! I love it. Then I know I’m protected for the next 21 days (even though I usually use it weekly) – just to make sure that nothing gets skipped! And even though we’re still staying safe (no outside visitors), I just feel better using this degree of protection in my home! So, I’m making it my new “cleaning habit”.

If you have any tips to share, please chime in! We’d love to hear your comments on our blog about how you’re creatively using my-shield to protect you and your family, so PLEASE SHARE!

By the way, we are not restricting limits to any of our products right now, except the 1.7 oz 6 packs, as those supplies are running low. We are also still out of stock on the 8 oz. hand sanitizer, but have just stocked up on 6.7 oz. bottles, with no limits (at this time). You can find those here – 2 PACK and 6 PACK
Stay safe and healthy!
Janet

13 comments

  1. Brooke - Reply

    Is the surface cleaner effective against Norovirus like the hand sanitizer?

    • Shane McClanahan - Reply

      Hi Brooke,
      All of our liquid products kill Norovirus. Although the my-shield Sanitizing SOAP kills Noro while wet, it is the only liquid that APR Bio-Tech sells that does not continue to kill for at least 4-6 hours on human skin. The Surface Cleaner kills on hard surfaces for 21 days. There is a newer product called “Body Spray”, but we have decided not to carry it because it can’t claim the same kill as everything else due to a decreased strength. I use the HS in one of our aluminum fine spray bottles as a body spray before a 12-hour fishing trip or working outside in the Florida sun for hours.
      Best, Shane

  2. Travis - Reply

    This might be rather left field, but it’s in a similar vein to an earlier question and hope you might offer some insight. I recently purchased a sprayer that produces electrolyzed water and was wondering if that could compromise the efficacy of Zetrisil given the charge? I was also wondering if there is any guidance on a SC dilution ratio for cleaning floors (or more generally if dilution for a less critical purpose is viable with the caveat of reduced efficacy)?

    • Shane McClanahan - Reply

      Hi Travis,

      I had to do some research about your question related to “electrolyzed water”. I read about hypochlorous acid, a weak bleach and sodium hydroxide, a lye type alkali. I would not mix either of these compounds with Zetrisil since it does what it was meant to do perfectly at it’s current pH and composition.

      Surface Cleaner was designed to be utilized without dilution. The most efficient mean to apply is with an electrostatic fogger. This device produces a very fine spray and just before the particles leave the nozzle, a positive electrical charge is applied to each tiny droplet. This results in the Zetrisil having an electro-mechanical attraction to any object in the space including the floor.

      Hope that discussion helps, Shane

  3. Thuy Doan - Reply

    Thank you for your always thorough and informative responses, Shane! The odor was from mold/mildew on synthetic fiber gym clothes. I will try using 4 ounces (my rinse compartment only holds 2 oz though) or pre-soaking, and washing the gym clothes in a separate load to keep it smaller. Is the reason the product is recommended in the rinse cycle and not pre-soak because you want to prolong the germ protection properties of the product?

    Can I use the Laundry Complete or Surface Sanitizer as a spray on clothing as well like the martial arts customer does with Hand Sanitizer? Per ounce that’s more economical than using the HS.

    I am so happy to know that I can continue to gently wipe my countertops with plain water between applications of the surface cleaner and not worry about losing the 21 day protection. I will get some microfiber wipes per your suggestion! I truly appreciate your tips on how to make my products last by using only the minimum required. It is hard to get used to the fact that we don’t have to apply your Hand Sanitizer every time we touch something when we are out and about!

    • Shane McClanahan - Reply

      Hi Thuy,
      That was a very good question about the persistent odor on the synthetic fiber gym clothes. Whenever fungus, molds or mildew has been on a surface for awhile, I can be very difficult to completely remove. This goes for clothing just like for shower walls. Mold grows as a vegatative form and also produces spores which can be difficult to remove. Mold stains on walls or clothing must be removed first with mechanical scrubbing and then our Laundry Complete can kill any residual mold spores from the clothing and Surface Cleaner used on any solid surface. There are other reasons that 2ozs may not be enough and that would be with a very large load (defined as > 10lbs) or a very biologically dirty load of clothing. Presoaking with Laundry Complete will work quite well and a method used on my offshore fishing clothes!

      You are exactly right about why the Laundry Complete (LC) is in the rinse cycle. Just like HS on hands and SC on surfaces, the products are designed to be applied and allowed to dry and in each instance, the electro-mechanical bond stays behind and continues to kill virus, bacteria and fungus on each surface. When LC was tested on Hospital Sheets, the anti-microbial effectiveness was remarkable as soon as the sheets were dry. The really good news is that when sheets from that same testing batch were pulled off of the shelf and retested 40 days later, the effectiveness was almost identical. Each time a piece of clothing is washed and then rinsed with LC it has cumulative effectiveness that stays on the fibers.

      Surface Cleaner and HS can be spray applied to clothing to kill bacterial odor between washings with the HS being the stronger of the two. Laundry Complete was never designed to not be rinsed away after application in the rinse cycle, so I can not speak to the application of full strength and then brought in contact with human skin. If you have a particularily odiforous area on clothing you certainly can spray LC directly on that area prior to washing.

      Remember that any object that contains biological (bacterial) sources of odor can be neutralized with spraying either HS or SC into or onto the object such as a shoe. The Hand Sanitizer Wipes are also very useful for a quick wipedown after a workout if there just isn’t time for a full shower.

      I hope that you find these explanations helpful.
      Best, Shane

    • Travis - Reply

      Thuy,

      I’ve encountered this exact issue before. I found success soaking the items in a 1:1 dilution of white vinegar for 30 minutes followed by a wash with laundry complete.

  4. Travis - Reply

    Is there a tentative timeline for restocking the gallon size hand sanitizer?

    • admin - Reply

      Travis – I wish I could give you a definitive answer on this… but I can’t. The only thing I can tell you is that this group of people will be the absolute first to know as we will immediately shout it out on the blog. And I promise to get it on the website the very same day!

      Janet

  5. Thuy Doan - Reply

    Hi Janet,

    Thanks again for the update!  I was going to message you because I was just worried about you and Shane after not seeing a post in so long! Glad you are both healthy.
    I have a couple of questions about using the surface sanitizer (and Laundry Clean):

    1. If used on kitchen countertops, do I need to wipe down with water after it dries if I am preparing food on the surface?

    2. I have some dried out or expired baby wipes, gym wipes and hydrogen peroxide wipes. Can I re-hydrate them with your surface sanitizer or would the residual products on those wipes mess with how the APR surface cleaner works? I prefer this material to paper towels which disintegrate too easily.

    3. Regarding Laundry Clean: this didn’t work so well to remove odors when added to my front loader washing machine rinse cycle. Would it be better to pre-soak laundry with this then toss in the wash?
    —

    • Shane McClanahan - Reply

      Hi Thuy,
      Thanks for your concern and yes, we are doing just fine. Laying low and staying busy. Happy Mother’s Day! I’ll answer your questions in order and numbered.
      !. When you wipe your kitchen countertop with Surface Cleaner or Hand Sanitizer and allow to dry, the bond is very tight from a protection standpoint and should last 21 days unless it is weakened by another cleaner with a solvent effect or significant friction (not usually seen on a countertop). Any EXCESS HS or SC can be easily wiped away with plain water. Since both are non toxic, they are safe without wiping away any excess. The most efficient way to use the thinnest layer of either is to apply with a very fine mist and wiped with a MICROFIBER cloth. You can also spray the mist directly upon the cloth and wipe until it no longer leaves a moist film. Unlike other wipes, the moist surface can be as thin as possible and dry immediately and still be fully effective. This is because the Zetrisil layer is just as effective after it dries as it is when it is wet. This is also why the method to use the thinnest layer possible without waste is the Electrostatic Sprayer. This device makes a very fine mist (almost a fog) and each particle has a + electrical charge placed on the droplet causing an electro-mechanical attraction to object touching the floor which usually have a negative or absent charge. Just like the 2 ends of the magnet, they attract and the mist wraps around objects well beyond line of sight.
      2. We have absolutely no idea what effect adding Zetrisil with any other chemical might have. Since we cannot imagine it improving what we know about Zetrisil by itself, it can only harm it’s effectiveness. I would suggest using one of the tougher paper towels that almost act like cloth or preferably a MICROFIBER washcloth as discussed earlier.
      3. I would be very interested in what type residual odor persisted after the Laundry Complete was used in your front loading washer. Even before we found that the recommended amount to use was 2-4oz per wash load, my household only used 2 ozs for each front loading wash. If the load is large or significantly more odoriferous than usual, be sure to use the larger quantity of 3-4 ozs and not mixed with any other rinse product or softener. The other possibility is that the odor is NOT a living biological caused odor. Examples would be an oil or fuel odor like gasoline or diesel which are very difficult to remove. While these odors are organic, they are not alive like many bacterial causes of odor like you would find in exercise or gym clothing / towels / socks, etc. The killing of bacteria is also why we hear of one of our martial arts customer routinely using the Hand Sanitizer spray as his primary deodorant and sprays his Judo Gi between washings. When I spend 12-13 hours fishing offshore, my bride absolutely will pre-soak my effected articles of clothing before placing them in the family washing machine.
      I hope you find this discussion helpful and I welcome the chance to answer any questions and entertain our fans ideas for how they use our family of products.
      Best regards, Shane

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