This type of household appliance is called a “cleaner-injector-extractor”! More simply, we also talk about a shampoo machine. Until recently, this was the type of machine that most often had to be rented when needed. But with Clean It, Rowenta offers a device that is accessible and always available if needed, at home.
And Clean It has everything to make parents of young children dream (you know, the ones who drop their toast full of spread on the sofa!). Or owners of furry animals (you know, the ones who don’t wipe their paws before walking on the carpet!).
With one promise: remove stains. 20 Minutes tried it.
Even the shoes
Practical to move with its handle (4.2 kg), easy to store with its hose (1.75 m) which wraps around its base, but also having a good radius of action (thanks to its cable). power supply of 5 meters), Clean It from Rowenta is above all very easy to use. Simply fill its clean water tank (removable, 2.3 liters) by adding just the right amount of detergent and turn on the device.
At the end of the pipe, fit one of the brushes provided (wide, narrow, for difficult areas and for shoes). A trigger allows you to spray the water/cleaning product mixture onto the surface to be cleaned and start shampooing. Here, nothing is foaming: Clean It injects its liquid mixture under pressure into the materials to be cleaned and vacuums at the same time.
When the dirt comes back up…
In the test, Clean It which we tested on a sofa, a carpet, but also on the seats of a car and sneakers, surprises with… the volume of dirt that the machine is capable of extracting! We notice this immediately as soon as we start brushing a textile support: transparent, the upper part of the two main Clean It brushes reveals the filthy mixture sucked up. Not very tasty!
The brown liquid is directly evacuated into the tray provided for this purpose, which then simply needs to be emptied and rinsed.
Please note, as the device has very good power (with a depression of 13 kPa, or kilos pascals), it is necessary that the surface you intend to clean is perfectly taut. Difficult, for example, to attack a hanging curtain that you would like to freshen up. The fact remains that several back and forth movements are necessary to overcome the deeply encrusted traces.
It is also easier to clean a fabric, even a slightly thick one, than a carpet or a long pile rug. Although the bristles of the brushes allow these materials to be better penetrated, it is sometimes necessary to do it several times. And don’t hesitate to let the sprayed detergent/water mixture act before vacuuming (especially on dry stains). But the result obtained is generally very satisfactory.
More balanced opinion for sneakers : unless you have to clean the fabric parts of shoes (and although a good wash in the washing machine can be extremely effective!), Clean It will not necessarily do better on smooth, plastic or leather parts , just a good sponge.
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Some precautions are necessary…
Be careful, cleaning a simple stain on a light-colored surface may require you to broaden your scope of action: Clean It doing its job well, the cleaned part will be (and visually appear) cleaner… You will need to therefore homogenize the cleaning, by treating the entirety of a sofa cushion rather than just a part, for example.
Furthermore, also think “drying”! Any Clean It intervention requires leaving a damp cleaned surface after use. Not a big deal on carpet; more annoying on a sofa; and really restrictive in the passenger compartment of a car at this time of year when a cleaned seat or armchair will take a long time to dry (and therefore risk giving off bad odors)! It would be better to wait for the sunny days here…
Good point, finally, for the self-cleaning system of our salon shampooer: with a simple dedicated tip to replace one of the brushes, simply immerse the hose in the clean water tank of the device and run it for a few seconds. Clean It then operates in a closed circuit and unclogs its suction pipe. All that will remain is to empty and rinse the dirty water tank.
Currently sold for 169 euros, the Rowenta machine is undoubtedly effective. Clean It is undoubtedly missing a steam function which, in addition to cleaning, would allow degreasing of certain surfaces and the elimination of bacteria. This type of device exists, notably at Bissel (with the SpotcleanHydrosteam), but requires an investment of at least 300 euros…