Hagerty Silver Polishing Gloves, $14.99 a pair, Hudson’s Bay Co.
The season for mittens and gloves goes on, and although I look forward to shedding them once the crocuses come up, there is a pair of each I've acquired this winter that I'm going to be happy to have at hand all year long.
The first is a pair of Hagerty Silver Polishing Gloves. There's no escaping elbow grease for serious polishing jobs, but what these are great for is maintaining silver between those muscular efforts. They are treated terry-cloth gloves that both remove light tarnish and at the same time swipe a tarnish-proof barrier on silver, keeping it shiny longer.
Say you just did a major polish a week ago on cutlery and then stuck a fork in a boiled egg resulting in instantly darkened tines; well, now, rather than dig out the messy stuff all over again, you just grab a Hagerty glove and run it quickly over the spot. Poof. Done. Back to brilliance.
(N.B. These gloves get black fast, but that doesn't stop them from working. You're not meant to wash them, otherwise all the special treatment comes off, but even at that, they're still useful for polishing to avoid filthy hands.)
My new mittens, meanwhile, are for the oven – and have they ever been long overdue. How many oven mitts (not to mention pot holders) are so thin and/or short that they guarantee a dropped pan and a yelp every time you try to use them (followed by a tattoo of a red ladder going up your forearm that lasts for months)? I can't count.
Starfrit clearly gave this consideration because they have a mitt that goes right up to the elbow, plus it's made of silicone (apart from the cotton cuff at the top and the thick, cozy lining).
This mitt has grip, it's easy to rinse off, it handles heat well and it protects even when wet (which can't be said of a tea towel whipped off the counter in a pinch). The only thing I don't like about the mitt is that the logo is printed rather obnoxiously across the cuff in giant letters. Who knows, perhaps it has secret dreams of one day becoming a luxury handbag.
Hagerty Silver Polishing Gloves, $14.99 a pair, Hudson's Bay Co.
Starfrit Oven Mitt, $16.99 each, Canadian Tire
Do you know of a genius domestic product? If so, Laura wants to hear about it. E-mail domesticaffairs@globeandmail.com.
Braising some greens like Swiss chard and kale on the stove makes for a colourful dish that is full of flavour and nutrition.