Can a cheap pair of Daiso Microfiber slippers really keep your floors shiny and dust free? Let’s just say that I had my doubts.
Every once in a while, I’ll come across a product that’s remarkable. That’s fun, because it’s interesting to examine remarkable things. Things can be remarkably good, remarkably bad — or remarkably dumb.
I think you can guess where I’d mentally placed the Daiso Microfiber Slippers well before even trying on a pair.
Daiso — a Japanese discount chain with around 20 stores across Australia’s eastern seaboard — has a bunch of this kind of thing, but for the most part I’m happy to leave them on the shelf. Although if you are a gamer, it’s worth noting they sell a 3DS USB charging cable for a couple of bucks that’s well worth getting hold of.
Still, I’ve got to blame ex-journalist (and now kickarse fitness and self defence guru (no, really, check out her fitness offerings here), Kerrie Murphy for this particular road… erm.. floor test. Then again, fitness and self defence — I’d better be careful what I say.
Anyway, Kerrie noticed them in her local Daiso, popped up a photo on her Facebook feed, and then, naturally, the silly part of my brain had to see quite how bad they were.
Not that this was easy; the first Daiso store I tried, in central Sydney, was all sold out. Apparently they’re wildly popular, according to staff. This only piqued my interest more. If lots of people like a thing, it must be good, right?
Image: Mike Mozart
Anyway, the Chatswood branch had some, and it’s Friday. I’m allowed to do stupid things on Friday. It’s a rule, or an old charter or something, so I laid down the requisite $3.80, figuring that they looked like they were way too small for my feet anyway.
They’re slippers, and yet they come with quite detailed instructions.
What did surprise me was that the Daiso Microfiber Slippers actually did fit my feet. Depending on the make, I’m somewhere between a size 9 1/2 to size 10 shoe, so this means they should fit most folks fairly well.
The question was, naturally, could they actually work at making my house magically shiny just by the simple expedient of me walking around it? There was only one way to test, and that was to walk around the house normally and see what they’d pick up.
My first observation was that they were in fact surprisingly comfortable for a pair of $3.80 slippers. I figured they’d fall apart the moment they touched my floor, but they’re quite decent, if obviously cheap. The microfibre bits can be felt through the base of the slipper, but this gives them that light massaging feel that you get from those sandals that used to be all the rage many years ago. Might have been the 1970s. Yeah, I’m old.
Comfort is one thing, but these slippers promise cleaning ability, and there the results are decidedly mixed. I have both kids and cats, and hadn’t done much sweeping of the wooden floors of the place I’m currently renting for a few days, so I was pretty easily able to pick up bits of dust, hair and assorted cruft with the slippers. That’s a plus.
On the minus side, however — and this was somewhat self evident — you’d have to skate around every floor inch you have to get things really clean with the Daiso Microfiber Slippers. What you’re more likely to do is provide a clean(ish) path through your most heavily trafficked areas, in the same way that carpets in a house will show definite wear patterns where they’re most heavily walked upon. That’s a bit of a minus.
You also end up not so much sweeping up and collecting grime — although there are elements of that — as kicking bits of it around, soccer style. It’s quite handy for dealing with side edges, because you can just sweep your foot around those edges to pick up or at least shift the dust, but at some point a dustpan and brush is going to be required. I didn’t check, but I’m certain Daiso sell those. In the interests of balance, I should point out that dustpans and brushes are sold in other bargain basement outlets as well.
So was it an entirely worthless frippery? No, not entirely. I wouldn’t pay much more than I did for the Daiso Microfiber Slippers, and naturally I’d be happier if they were even cheaper.
They’re comfy enough as straight simple slip-on type slippers, and even if all you do is use them to kick dust around from edges where a broom might be trickier to use, they’d be a reasonable buy.