A Smart Choice in Portable Wipes – WysiWipes Review & Giveaway

You can tell a lot about a woman by looking at her purse. And if you look into most womens’ purses, you’ll think that every single one of us is prepared for the end of the world. From bottles of water, to snacks, to band-aids. Pens, scraps of paper, rubber bands. You could probably find enough to build a MacGyver like teepee using the contents of a women’s purse. Well ladies – I’m about to introduce one more product to add to our purse arsenal – the WysiWipe.

WysiWipes are the ultimate portable cleaning cloths. WysiWipes are made out of cellulose, an organic compound that you can get from plants such as cotton, and are biodegradable. What makes WysiWipes so unique is that not only are they 100% natural and hypo-allergenic, but they start off as the smallest cloth wipes you may ever see.

Out of the bag, the WysiWipe doesn’t appear to be a wipe at all. It appears to be a small disk that is about the size of a nickel wide and four nickels high. Basically, the wipes have been compressed into a form factor that is incredibly small and is very easy to store in a purse pocket or car glovebox. You’ll also notice that they aren’t pre-moistened with any liquid, which helps prevent the growth of bacteria. (Since bacteria love moisture no moisture means not bacteria.) They are dry to touch and are very lightweight.

You might wonder how such a small disk can turn into a 9×10″ cloth. It’s actually pretty easy (and very fun to watch.) Simply add about 1 ounce of a liquid of your choice to create your custom wipe. Here’s my very first video showing the WysiWipe growing. Notice the water levels in the measuring cup before and after. It’s filled to 2 ounces and after the WysiWipe expands, there’s just 1 ounce of water left, so it absorbed 1 ounce (1 tablespoon) of water while it grew.

Here’s a picture of the cloth after I folded it out where you can see that it actually expands to the 9×10″ size.

Another thing that’s really nice about the WysiWipe, is that in it’s original form it does not have any added chemicals, scents or alcohols. It is purely a cloth, so you can truly customize the WysiWipe to meet your needs. If you just need to wipe your hands, you can add water. If you need to clean your mirrors, just add some Windex. I actually thought that the WysiWipe worked better than my normal paper towels because it didn’t leave those annoying pieces of lint on the mirrors after I wiped them down. It’s not really advertised as a re-usable cloth, but I think the WysiWipe is re-usable. I added water and used one to wipe of the kitchen counters, gave it a quick rinse, and then let it dry on the sink.

I was impressed by the durability of the WysiWipes. I think I took it beyond the normal acts of cleaning up spills and wiping hands when I decided to try using a WysiWipe as a wash cloth. While the WysiWipe seemed to stretch out and expand (it probably grew to about double the length) when drenched in water, it did not tear when used to scrub off the dirt of the day. Not only did it stay in one piece, but it retained its softness and did not itch or irritate the skin when it was scrubbing. The only way I got the WysiWipe to tear was when I stretched it so it was fully taught, then I had to force my finger through the material. I guess technically that means I couldn’t even get it to tear – I could only create a hole, because the rest of the wipe remained intact.

If we take a closer look at the cloth itself, we may be able to see why the WysiWipes are so strong. It looks like the wipes are made of threaded and networked fibers, which would mean that when you’re pulling one side of the cloth, the fibers are still strongly attached to other parts of the cloth, preventing tearing. I imagine that the little air pockets between the threads also help disperse any single-point pressure. I bet that the pockets also allow the wipe to absorb moisture more effectively since more surface areas of the fibers are exposed. These are only theories, of course – I’m not an expert in cloth wipe technology.

WysiWipes are great products to take with you whether on-the-go or at home. You can see some of the ways that other people use their WysiWipes on their website – www.wysiwipes.com. I think this would be a great gift for my dad, who is an avid hiker and could use something so compact and lightweight.

WysiWipes come in a few different package sizes – from a convenient 2-pack to a 500 pack. Pricing varies based on quantity, but you can get the 500 pack for $44.95 which calculates to just under $0.09 per WysiWipe. WysiWipes are available for purchase through their online store.

Do you want to try out the WysiWipe? There are lots of great contests going on that can give you the opportunity to try out WysiWipe for yourself! The WysiWipe website is hosting a weekly contest where you simply upload a picture of yourself using a WysiWipe and you can win a free bag of WysiWipes. In addition, in conjunction with Organic Girl, WysiWipe is hosting a DAILY giveaway, where one lucky winner will win a 12-pack of WysiWipes. People who enter the Organic Girl/WysiWipe Daily giveaway will also be entered to win the Grand Prize – a one week stay at any Interval World Resort! As if that wasn’t enough, we’re also hosting two What’s Cooking at DD WysiWipe Giveaways! The first giveaway will run from March 4-March 18 and the second giveaway will run from March 19-April 2.

The Prize:

One winner will receive a 100-pack of WysiWipes.

To Enter:

Make sure you follow the directions carefully. All giveaway entries should use the ENTRY FORM. You only need to fill out the ENTRY FORM once, unless you decide to additional earn extra entries at a later time. You can earn up to 16 entries into the WCatDD WysiWipe Giveaway by doing one, some or all of the following:

Ways to Earn Entries:

Make sure you use this ENTRY FORM for your entries to count!

1. THIS ENTRY IS REQUIRED FOR ALL OTHER ENTRIES TO BE VALID (+1): Visit www.wysiwipe.com and tell me one thing you like about WysiWipes AND how you would use the WysiWipe.
2. Follow WysiWipe on Twitter (+1)
3. Fan the WysiWipe Facebook Page (+1)
4. Enter the Organic Girl/WysiWipe Daily Giveaway (+1) – Can only be earned once.
5. Post this giveaway on your blog (+3)
6. Tweet about this giveaway using the “retweet” link at the top of this post or by tweeting “Trying to win biodegradable, convenient and versatile cleaning cloths in the @WCatDD WysiWipe Giveaway! http://bit.ly/clmeTN” (+1)
7. Subscribe to WCatDD (+1)
8. Follow WCatDD on Twitter (+1)
9. Fan our WCatDD Facebook Page (+1)
10. Follow us on Google Friend Connect (+1)
11. Follow us using Network Blogs (+1)
12. Add the WCatDD button to Your Site (+2)

The Rules:

One winner will be selected at random for this prize.

Giveaway ends at 11:59 PM EST, March 18, 2010.

Visit our Giveaway Rules page for general giveaway rules that also apply to this giveaway.

Disclaimer: This post consists of my (and/or fellow tester) opinions only. Your experiences may be different. No compensation was given for this review/giveaway. I did receive free WysiWipes from the manufacturer or their representing PR agency to use and test for the purposes of this review. This did not affect the outcome of this review.