Why You Should Keep A Bowl Of Ice Water Around When Using Your Scrub Daddy Sponge

The Scrub Daddy sponge is an excellent product with tough scrubbing capabilities. If you want to make the most out of this iconic smiley face tool, you need to start experimenting with the temperature. Don't let the whimsical design distract you — this sponge's key feature is actually its ability to change texture in cold and hot water. A Scrub Daddy sponge feels soft when warmed and becomes harder and more abrasive when chilled. Thus, the one product can provide you with a range of scrubbing textures for all your cleaning needs.

This texture-changing magic is all great in theory, but sometimes a cleaning job needs both a tough sponge and warm water, a seemingly impossible combo for the Scrub Daddy. Fortunately, the cleaning side of TikTok is here to remind us of the proper way to use this product: dip it in ice water. With a bowl of ice water at your side, you can firm up your sponge in just a few seconds.

Keeping your Scrub Daddy cold isn't complicated — a bowl of ice water should do the trick to quickly cool it down and harden the texture. TikTok user @jettsetfarmhouse gives a simple demonstration of how to incorporate ice water into your cleaning routine. Between scrubs, the sponge is briefly dipped into an ice water bowl, ensuring that it stays abrasive. Note that @jettsetfarmhouse appears to be using a Scrub Mommy, the dual-sided version of the Scrub Daddy. If your sponge is dual-sided, be sure to dip the rougher side of the sponge into the ice water to achieve the hardening effect.

For convenience's sake, use a bowl large enough for you to fully submerge the sponge. Fill the bowl with a generous amount of ice to ensure that the water stays cold for the duration of your cleaning process. If you really want to maximize efficiency, you can also put the bowl in the fridge or freezer ahead of time so it's thoroughly chilled when you're ready to start scrubbing.

Dipping a Scrub Daddy into cold water isn't just a creative cleaning hack, it's precisely how the sponge was designed to be used. It's even what Scrub Daddy founder Aaron Krause opened with during his now-famous Shark Tank pitch. The sponge's unique texture-changing quality comes from a patented material called FlexTexture. Scrub Daddy describes FlexTexture as a highly engineered polymer foam (more specifically, it's made with thermoplastics, a category of plastic that softens in heat without being chemically altered). In addition to changing textures under different temperatures, the foam is also non-toxic and odor-resistant, according to the company.

With all that in mind, the Scrub Daddy sponge is not a cheap cleaning item, as they cost about $4 each at Target. This price can add up quickly when you're replacing your Scrub Daddy every couple of weeks. So if you choose to spend the extra dollars, make sure you're putting that signature FlexTexture technology to work and bring out a bowl of ice water to discover this sponge's full scrubbing might.