Cats shed.  There's no denying it.  And my giant black & white guy seems to be a champ at shedding.  He has a few places where he really enjoys his naps, and those spots are always covered with fur.  It would take a ridiculous number of sticky sheets to de-fur those spots, if I used those basic lint rollers. 

Luckily I found the 3M Scotch Fur Fighter kit.   This "kit" consists of one plastic holder and 6 "gripper" sheets.

The plastic holder has a comfortable, rounded handle that's easy to hold onto.  The handle is attached to a slightly curved sweeping surface measuring approximately 6" long by 4" wide.  The sweeping surface is covered with a white material, which comes into play when you attach a gripper sheet.

The gripper sheet is a yellow sheet covered with thousands of little tiny bumps.  Scotch calls these bumps "Microtap Grippers".  They're not sticky.  They feel very similar to the rough half of Velcro.  And when I say there are "thousands" of them I am not exaggerating.  I estimate that a square centimeter of the sheet contains 200 bumps. 

It's a fairly simple matter to attach the gripper sheet to the curved surface of the holder.  That's because, using a process similar to Velcro, the back of the gripper sheet tightly adheres to the white material that covers the surface. 

It's a pretty cool design.  Using nothing sticky, the sheets adhere to the sweeping surface, but can be easily removed and re-applied if necessary.

Once the gripper sheet is attached to the sweeping surface, grab the handle and get sweeping!  Simply sweep the gripper sheet over your upholstery and those little "Microtap Grppers" pick up the fur.  I'd be lying if I told you that I understood exactly how those little bumps grab the fur so well, but they do.  I suppose it has something to do with their exact shape, and the sheer number of them.

There are a couple aspects of this design that I really like.  First of all, you can sweep the upholstery in any direction.  Other cleaners that I've tried can only sweep in one direction.  I also like that the sweeping surface is slightly curved.  In fact it angles gently on one side, and more sharply on the other side.  Between the two angles you can easily get into the nooks and crannies.  Like in between cushions or between the seat and the back of the chair.  Curved handles and armrests are also no problem. 

All I know is, the fur comes up with no problems.  The results are really quite remarkable, actually.  While it's not 100% effective, it comes darn close.  When I'm finished, a sweep of the hand over the upholstery reveals almost no hair left behind.

The only problem I find is that sometimes if a particularly large chunk of fur is dislodged from the upholstery, the gripper won't hold it, and the fur will fall on the floor.  It's not a huge deal to then pick it up and throw it away, but it would be better if the grippers "held" as well as they "dislodged".

So what do you do after the gripper sheet is covered with fur?  Well, if you follow the manufacturer's directions, you pull it off the handle and discard, starting with a new sheet next time.  But if you're cheap, like me, you use your hands to scrape off as much of the fur from the sheet as you can, and use the sheet again and again.  I would say that the sheet can be used 5 times before it gets to the point where there are simply too many embedded hairs that you can't remove, or the bumps start to lose their effectiveness (presumably because they break or bend as you use them).  

The "kit" that I bought came with one sheet already attached to the handle, and 5 refill sheets.  The cost was approximately $8.  I would find that a little pricey, if I didn't reuse the sheets a few times.  But, since I do, the price isn't so bad.  And when I'm finished with these sheets, I can buy 8 refill sheets for around $4.  The bottom line is, I can easily get my upholstered chairs and couches fur-free!  And that's worth a lot - especially when I'm wearing dressy black slacks!

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