Los Altos resident Laura Ivy grew up in the kitchen, cooking with her mom and grandparents, and now she continues the tradition with her three daughters.
“I grew up cooking from scratch and that’s the tradition I’m passing on to them,” she said. “But the kitchen is the most dangerous room in your home, whether it’s the oven, stovetop or kitchen knives. I teach them how to use things safely. Knives, in general, have always been a danger – you want them out of harm’s way. But when you’re done using them, many people throw them in the kitchen sink.”
As a merchandiser at Crate & Barrel, Ivy gained a professional eye for the tools of the kitchen. Now she’s taken kitchen safety into her own hands by designing a knife-cleaning tool, the Kitchenwise Skrub, that aims to keep family dinners injury-free.
“I see all the newest items coming in and out season after season but have never seen anything that helps clean kitchen knives safely,” she said. “Most people use a folded sponge or towel and run the risk of cutting through it and cutting their hand.”
Handwashing knives preserves their blade and handle, so the solution needed to live by the kitchen sink.
“I’m a clean-as-you-go cook, so there is always a sink of hot, soapy water waiting while we are prepping a meal,” Ivy wrote on her blog. “My girls have picked up on this as well, but letting them wash our knives by hand is just not something I am comfortable with. As soon as they head for the sink, I find myself trying to quickly remove any sharp knives that I tossed in there. It’s like putting my hand into a bowl of piranhas while trying to not get bitten.”
Versatile tool
Ivy started experimenting with solutions at home that allowed for finger-protected handwashing. She worked with the San Jose-based design and engineering firm WAGIC Inc. for more than a year to develop a final prototype.
Her Skrub tool layers a silicon shield over a sponge interior, with palm and finger protection and a thumb guide. The rigid plastic core helps distribute pressure as you grab and clean, and the palm protector ensures that the hand or fingers aren’t exposed to the cutting surface. The spongy inner cleaning layer can be reversed.
“I wanted to make it versatile so that it wasn’t a disposable item,” Ivy said. “You can swap out bristle or drying pads. I’ve heard from friends that it’s not just for knives – you can lay it flat and scrub a grill. It is a safety mechanism so that you’re not going to slice through yourself. My 11-year-old has used it and I feel completely safe with her using it.”
Interested local cooks can preorder as part of Ivy’s Kickstarter campaign. Entrepreneurs use the website to fundraise based on business goals, while inventors use the platform to reach consumers directly. Kitchenwise is trying to raise $45,000 for the first production run. Contributors will receive early delivery of the product. A successful campaign shows that a startup idea has a committed customer base. The crowdfunding site sets a time limit on campaigns, so if Ivy doesn’t reach her goal by Sept. 30, she will need to restart her fundraising efforts.
“There have been people who want to invest in it already – one way or another it’s not going to sink. This is a learning curve,” she said. “It’s really not easy to get a product developed – it’s been a long road and very eye-opening. Once you need to go get it tooled, you can’t say, ‘I want to make 500 of these.’ You need to say, ‘I want to make several thousand of these.’”
For more information, visit kitchen-wise.com or kickstarter.com/projects/kitchenwise/skrubtm-cleaning-system.
