How To Choose the Right Microfiber Cloths for Cleaning Your Devices

Microfiber has quickly become one of the most popular materials in cleaning electronics. When your iPhone gets smudged or your monitor gets dusty, you're likely to reach for the soft, synthetic cloth to make the displays pristine again. While it's seen use in various applications over the last few decades, it's become particularly popular among consumers in the last few years. 
 
Technically speaking, microfiber is any stranded material with a strand weight of less than one denier (a denier is a unit of measurement defined as the number of grams 9,000 meters of a strand of material weighs). In terms of consumer use, microfiber is any woven material made of microfibers (smaller than 1 denier), generally made from 80/20 blend of polyester and polyamide. Natural silk is 1 denier, and it's extremely difficult to find any natural fiber suitable for commercial use smaller than that.

But given this loose definition, it's clear that not all microfiber clothes are created equal. Let's take a look at what's best for cleaning your shiny screens and devices. 
 
Beyond the material and strand weight, microfiber cloth can vary greatly in structure. Woven tightly it can be effectively waterproof, but in that form it's not very useful for cleaning and dusting. The most common form of microfiber for electronics cleaning is a looser weave that uses split strands. A machine splits microfibers radially, creating a series of longitudinal grooves down the strands that become statically charged, pulling in bits of debris like dust. This is extremely useful for cleaning screens, but it's obviously not the sort of material you'd use to bat dust bunnies off of your motherboard. 
 
Different types of microfiber cloths are used for different purposes, but generally the type of microfiber used for cleaning is relatively loosely woven for softness, and split-stranded for cleaning ability. The larger the job, the heavier and thicker the cloth can be; a microfiber hankie for wiping glasses and cell phones will be lighter than a larger cloth used to wipe an HDTV screen, and even that won't be as heavy as a microfiber chamois for cleaning a car. While any soft, sturdy, absorbent material is suitable for cleaning a shiny surface, cloths specifically made for use with portable devices or HDTVs are better because of the size and weight of the cloth. 
 
While microfiber cloths don't necessarily "go bad," they do need some care for long-term use. When your cloth gets too covered in dust to be effective, you can either buy a new one or wash the old. If you want to wash, either wash the the cloth by hand or dedicate an entire load to washing many cloths; they're susceptible to heat and should only be cleaned on normal or gentle cycle. Some users recommend buying light-colored microfiber clothes, so the dirt shows up more prominently and it's easier to know when they need to be washed.  
 
The feel of the material varies from brand to brand and product to product, but generally any microfiber cloth suitable for cleaning a surface will be suitable for cleaning your electronics. Just don't use them to clean inside electronics; that's why we have canned air. Well, that, and because it's fun to turn the can upside-down and pretend you're Mister Freeze. 
 
Image credit: Flickr user wenslydale