About a month ago, we took a family roadtrip to the Home & Housewares Show in Chicago. While there, we were introduced to amazing brands and products, including Haan. When I visited the Haan booth, they told me the story of how their company was founded, and I was really impressed. A Korean housewife and mother named Romi Haan wanted to come up with a way that she could more easily and quickly sanitize her floors vs. scrubbing on her hands and knees on a daily basis. She came up with products that would clean and sanitize, using steam. It’s exciting to write about a company that was founded by a fellow wife and mom with the spirit of an entrepreneur.

Enter the Haan Complete, a steam cleaner that will clean and sanitize just about any surface in your home (of course, we also used it on our car). Since our oldest was born, I’ve looked for ways to clean, sanitize, and disinfect our home without having to use a lot of harsh chemicals; we’ve tried to use more natural products along the way, but now we have the option to sanitize without any chemicals at all. This steamer is the mother of all steam cleaners, in my opinion. It has so many different purposes, and there are so many different ways one can use it.

Just to point out a few of the features: the Haan Complete is a pull/carry along machine, but it’s quite compact, making it feasible to carry along as you steam or to wherever you need to use it. The handle of the steamer has the Steam Trigger, so you just hold that down as you steam. The main machine has a convenient carry handle, and it’s not heavy or strenuous to use. It has several pieces for different purposes, but there is a storage pocket in the canister itself…. as well as a small drawstring tote bag for extra pieces not used on a more regular basis. The machine comes with several attachments, cleaning brushes, cleaning socks, a sponge and towel, a squeegee, a measuring cup/funnel, etc. The cord for the machine wraps up and stores away in the back of the machine itself, making for easy cleanup when done. Also, yet another feature that I’m really happy about…. the cleaning cloths and bonnets and pads are all washable, making them reusable. Now the bottom of the main steam head is a bit rough, so it’s advisable not to lay that flat on a surface, as it could scratch it, but they’ve also provided a resting mat for that.

Before I get into the many different ways we used the steamer and how it can be used, I will say this…. if using around children, it’s important to be aware while the machine is in use. The steam is hot (a no-brainer), so it’s important to keep this in mind while waiting for the machine to heat up, while cooling down, etc., times when you may be tempted to walk away, leaving it unsupervised. Now on to the good stuff…. how we used the Haan Complete. The steamer was easy to prepare for use. First we had to assemble the machine, which was quite easy with the instructions provided. While unplugged, we simply filled the steamer with water; you can actually get about 30 minutes of steam time if you add the right amount of water. Again a measuring cup and funnel are provided to make it easier.  The nice thing is that if you do run out of steam, you can always refill the tank.

After we filled the steamer, we turned it on, and the green light came on. We had to wait to let the steamer heat up; it has an orange ready light that comes on after a few minutes, but this was slightly confusing to us. Even though the light says “Ready,” we had to wait until that light went off to actually steam. The amount of water you fill your steamer with determines the amount of time you’ll wait, usually only a few minutes, enough time to prep your tools. I started out wanting to steam my floors. The steamer is supposed to kill 99.9% of germs, bacteria, and dust mites, so I was anxious to see how it would clean my floor. A certain 4 year old likes to play with stickers, and he had left about 3 stickers in different places on our floor, and I hadn’t been able to get them up. After steaming over the stickers for a few minutes, they scrubbed right off. That was super exciting, as I’d been dreading getting down on the floor and trying to scrape those up. It left our kitchen floor smooth and clean, and we didn’t have an odor from cleaners lingering in the air…. simply water turned into steam. Not only will it sanitize our hard floors, but it’ll also sanitize our carpet, using the Carpet & Rug Tray. They even recommend using it to help lift stains out of the carpet, something I haven’t had to do yet (knock on wood) but am sure I will in the future.

Next we tried using the steamer on our windows. In fact, Dan got quite carried away and even took the machine outside, working on our back door and all the kitchen windows…. I wasn’t complaining. We used the bigger steam head with the Glass & Mirror Bonnet provided in the kit. We also tried using the squeegee, although we liked the bonnet better because it seemed to clean a bit more thoroughly. I did notice slight droplet lines on the kitchen door as we were working on it, but that’s where the squeegee would come in handy, taking excess water from the steam away. Of course, you could also use this in a shower or on counters, ceramic stovetops, and more.

Pappy Dan had come for a visit, so he even got in on the action; he was kinda anxious to try the steamer out, so we put him to work on the car. We could have used the bigger steam head on our car window, but it was a bit awkward with the curved structure of the glass, so we decided to use the smaller head with the mini bonnet. We also tried the squeegee on the car window but found the bonnet did a much better job, leaving the window quite sparkly; we had quite a few bugs on the window, and the steam really helped to take those bugs right off. We also used it on the headlights and on the front of the car where there tends to be more buildup of dried gunk/bugs.

Finally, another way we used the Haan Complete was to clean our tire rims. See the before/after effect of the steam on the rim, making it nice and shiny. We used both a small brush and the concentrated/angled nozzles for this purpose. It’s really easy to switch out the different tools as you go along, whether inside your home or outside. I was surprised to see that we can even use the steamer on our toilet, to get wrinkles out of clothes, to sanitize upholstery and bedding, and more. There’s really no end to the surfaces you can clean and sanitize with the Haan Complete.

You can purchase the Haan Complete for $179.95 directly from Haan. I definitely recommend this product, especially if you have kids at home and are looking for a way to safely sanitize your floors without releasing harsh chemicals in your home…. not to mention the money to be saved without having to buy cleaners. Be sure to Like HAAN on Facebook and follow @SteamExperts on Twitter. You can also add HAAN SteamExperts to your circles on Google+.

(Disclosure: I received a HAAN Complete, free of charge, for the purposes of review. All views/opinions remain solely my own.)