Product Review & Giveaway –The Dish Mat: An Alternative to Dish Drainers

I left my double decker dish drainer in China and got a dishwasher here in America! That was a great exchange to say the least.

Despite having the automatic dishwasher, I still seem to hand wash a lot of items — my wooden spoons, good knives, kitchen scissors, large cutting boards, pots and pans. So I’m stuck with an ugly plastic dish drainer on the counter.

No longer.

I am now a convert to the dish mat. I have three of these; I love them that much!

[ Are you jealous of my cast iron skillet? It is jealousy worthy. What a blessing -- a hand-me-down from a friend at church. It was his mother's, and he gave it to me when she passed away. It's been used for probably forty years, so it's seasoned to perfection. I love it. And you know it can't go into the dishwasher.]

The dish mat is visually unobtrusive. And when it’s physically in the way, I can fold it up or put it into a drawer. Try doing that with a dish drainer!

Besides serving as a dish mat, I use it while I’m working in the kitchen for several other uses. It works fantastically as a fruit and veggie mat after I wash the produce. No more puddles of water all over the counter. The dish mat absorbs it all. No more fruit rolling off the counter. The foam center of the dish mat gives the fruit a tad of cushion that keeps it from rolling around.

I also use it to soak up the water from thawing packages of meat, like the fish fillets you see pictured here.

Somehow this mat is constructed to wick away the moisture. I washed two glasses and placed them top down on the mat, no tilt, no air getting in. I wondered if they would retain moisture inside and need to be wiped before putting them away. Nope. Dry inside and out the next morning. (Yes, I leave clean dishes out overnight, don’t you?)

Another huge advantage of the dish mats over a conventional dish drainer is how easy they are to clean. I despise how a dish drainer gets a brown film on the bottom. It’s not an easy thing to wash because of all the crevices. The dish mats go straight into the washer with the towels.

I’ve washed my mats several times already, and they always come out of the washer and dryer looking brand new. I learned that these dish mats are specially constructed with a layer of foam sandwiched between two layers of microfiber.  The three layers are actually fused together so that the mat can be repeatedly washed and dried without the layers separating.

You can purchase these online at Garden Botanika or in retail stores Walmart and Dollar General. You need to know that the discount stores’ dish mats are available only in the tan color, and the texture of the mat is a terry cloth weave rather than a waffle weave. You can see the differences in the photo above. The sage green is the one you buy online. The tan one is for sale at discount stores. The Garden Botanika version is more attractive and feels a bit more quality, but they work the same. The differences seem to be merely aesthetic.

Giveaway

On Thursday, Oct. 20, I will choose three different winners to receive a 16×18 inch, gray dish mat.

How to Enter

1. REQUIRED:  Simply leave a comment here, telling me what feature of the dish mat sounds most appealing to you.

2.  OPTIONAL:  For an extra entry, tweet this contest at Twitter, using the hashtag #dishmat. (If you use the Tweet This button at the top or bottom of this post, you will need to manually add that hashtag.) Please post an additional comment letting me know that you tweeted it.

Not a fan of gray?

Well, there are a total of eleven bloggers doing dish mat reviews and giveaways. Enter each giveaway to increase your chances of winning or to find that prefect color match for your kitchen. (See all the colors online at Garden Botanika.)

1. A Slob Comes Clean –Coastal Blue
2. Spell Outloud — Coastal Blue
3. Many Little Blessings –Sage Green
4. Finding Joy — Sage Green
5. Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers — Gray
6. Raising Arrows –Red
7. Feels Like Home –Red
8. An Oregon Cottage — Cream
9. Mama’s Learning Corner — Black
10. Crispy Not Crunchy — Black

The Fine Print

RULES: Prizes can be shipped only to continental US addresses. You will be contacted by email and must reply within 48 hours to claim your prize. If you do not claim your prize, another winner will be chosen.

DISCLAIMER: I received free dish mats and was compensated for my time to write this review and to organize this giveaway. (But I already owned a dish mat which I purchased at Dollar General before I was contacted to hold this giveaway. My first review is here.)

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