Most of furniture is made from wood that comes from trees. When you cut down a tree and make a piece of furniture with it, it is no longer alive. It is dead wood. Because it is dead wood, you need to use some type of furniture polish / oil to keep it hydrated and looking good. 
The furniture polish I use: Behold, Kleen Guard and Endust.
I also use oils such as: Lemon Oil or Orange Oil when I clean furniture.
I use a microfiber cloth to dust, polish and make my furniture shine.
For some reason I see a lot of people with dusty furniture or dry furniture.
You can't always "dry" dust your furniture and expect it too look good or not to look dry and it will continually look dusty.
Furniture made from wood needs something to moisturize it to keep the dust away.
Another thing I run into is people spray on furniture polish, wipe and call it good. Sometimes when I take on a new customer, I can tell that they use this technique because there is a pull on my rag when I dust. Plus, this technique doesn't work to keep the dust away.
How I dust furniture is spray on the polish and take my rag and buff the furniture polish until you see a shine. It takes a little bit of movement to shine up the polish on your furniture. You move the rag back and forth or circular motion quickly as you buff your furniture until it is slick and smooth shiny surface. This is when dust doesn't adhere as much because it is so slick.
When you feel a drag on your microfiber rag or cloth, you haven't polished your furniture to keep the dust off longer as when it is buffed up into a slick, smooth and shiny surface.
Sometimes when I go into a new customers house, their furniture is so dry and looks terrible. Dry furniture will look and become dusty fast.
When furniture is dry, I take lemon or orange oil and put some moisture back into the wood. My customers are always amazed at how beautiful and dust free their wood becomes after a few cleanings. It's a dramatic change just to add moisture back into the wood.
Furniture polish is needed to take the dust off of furniture. If you don't use some type of polish, the dust flies into the air and comes down again on to your furniture.
You will also need to dust more if you have pets or children. They stir up dust and you will always seem to have more.
If you feel like you can't keep up with the dust, that means you need to vacuum your carpet more too.
The 2 things go hand in hand ... dusting and vacuuming.
I'm always asked what I do first, vacuum or dust?
I always dust first so that the dust that may go on the floor is vacuumed up. Also most vacuums have a hepa filter that cleans the dust out of the air as you vacuum.
If you have children, you should always have a dust free home. Children love to help clean.
Take a sock and add buttons for eyes and maybe some yarn for hair and make a sock duster for your child. I put some lemon or orange oil in my hand and rub it on the sock. Then send your child off to dust the furniture.
When I was young one of our jobs was to dust the baseboards. It's much easier for a child to reach those areas because they are small. Plus you have the added bonus that they feel an accomplishment of doing a good job cleaning and helping. Make sure you always praise them when they finish.
Once your furniture has oil in it and has a furniture polish shine, I do use a swiffer duster to keep up between polishing (using furniture polish once a week or once every 2 weeks).
When I'm talking on the phone, I usually go around and swiffer my furniture to multi task. I also do a quick swiffer before I vacuum if it's before the weekly or bi-weekly furniture polish I do on my furniture.
For my home of 1 empty nester, I use furniture polish bi-weekly and swiffer in between. My house doesn't get too dusty because I don't have pets or children.
If you have pets or children, you should use furniture polish every week.
I also have to add that I HATE feather dusters. all they do is stir up the dust, put it in the air and then it falls back down and everything looks dusty again.
If your cleaning service uses a feather duster .... it's time to find a new one.
Throw out that feather duster - it's useless!
To recap:
1. Furniture made of wood that is dead and needs moisture to keep it looking beautiful.
2. When using furniture polish, you need to "buff" your furniture until it is smooth and shiny, moving your cloth to buff up the shine and a make the surface of your furniture smooth and slick with the added bonus of a brilliant shine.
3. If you have pets or children, you will need to dust more.
4. To keep dust out of your house and off your furniture, you need to also vacuum more.
5. Use your children to keep the dust off your furniture with a sock duster.
6. Use a swiffer in between your weekly or bi-weekly furniture polish dusting.
7. If you have a feather duster - throw it out!
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