June 21, 2008 | Kitchen, Essential oils, Cleaning tips, Cleaning products
We love them. We admire them. They make cooking dinner more of a luxury and less of a drudgery. But how to best clean them and keep them looking all shiny and nice?
There are a few things to try. On the job, we use Shaklee Scour Off on a microfiber cloth. It goes on like butter (but you have to pronounce it “Butt-a”) and takes away all the grimy fingerprints and even cooked on grease and petrified food. It does an awesome job on the inside of ovens and the removable ‘cages’ of gas ranges. It’s also great for kitchen sinks and tons of other things (hard water deposits on shower doors, rust on the side of the car, tile backsplashes - you get the idea). That’s what we use. And as Atlanta’s premier all-natural maid service, we tend to think we have a good understanding of things like that.
If you want to give your stainless steel an extra shine, put some olive oil on a microfiber cloth and rub it in. Ooohhh, your dinner guests will drool over your gorgeous appliances (as will the buyers at your Open House!).
But if you’re looking for a simple miracle solution, pick up some orange essential oil from a natural foods store. I’m not talking about the orange-based (or, more precisely, orange-named) cleaners you see at supermarkets - they’ll be the topic of another post. But pure essential orange oil is a good friend to stainless steel. It removes water marks and fingerprints (though you’ll need something tougher for grimy spots) and it shines it too. Even better, it has a sweet, fresh scent with anti-depressant properties. It’s also anti-depressive, anti-fungal, antiseptic, and anti-bacterial. What’s not to like?
Keep in mind when cleaning your stainless that chlorine and stainless steel don’t get along well. We’d avoid chlorine in pretty much all situations regardless, but if you’re one of those die-hard (literally) caustic cleaner fans who stocks their home with all sorts of hazardous chemicals, make sure to keep your chlorine and anything made with chlorine away from your stainless steel. They’re not friends.
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Ron Ford says:
These are excellent methods for cleaning Stainless steel appliances and sinks from finger prints, smudges, food and grime. I haven’t seen the Shaklee Scour Off, but it looks very interesting and we’ll have to check that out. There are some Stainless steel problems that cleaning won’t solve like scuffs and scratches, heat scorching, chemical stains (like you referred to regarding chlorine, etc.), and even rust.
Most of the Stainless steel manufacturers, their call centers and many of the distributors of appliances and sinks are now using, selling and/or recommending the Scratch-B-Gone system. It resolves all of those problems and blends the repair into the surrounding Stainless steel area so it looks like new again. Maid services and other service providers are starting to rely on Scratch-B-Gone to keep them from very costly replacements when something is accidentally scratched by them; its also a great up-sell opportunity when they are on the job for something else.
June 22nd, 2008 at 7:51 amMelissa Lee says:
Did you know I was, literally, minutes away from tackling my stainless steel kitchen when I saw this post. And I was about to do it with one of those “orange named” agents. So please!! Give me the “dirt” on those cleaners. Cause, I’ll admit…I’m a sucker for their advertising.
June 22nd, 2008 at 6:19 pmThanks for your help you guys.