HOW TO CLEAN STAINLESS STEEL APPLIANCES WITH BABY OIL

Hey there! I’m Meredith from unOriginal Mom, and I am SUPER excited to be a contributor for Uncommon Designs (still pinching myself a little bit)! I’ll let you in on a little secret – I am not super creative, my house isn’t all that clean or organized, and I’m not a fantastic cook…but I LOVE to be inspired by the great ideas of others and then put my own spin on them! My blog is all about those inspired ideas – sharing where they came from, how I made it my own, and how it worked for me. I hope you’ll stop by and see some of the projects that I’ve shared in my Winner’s Circle! I’m looking forward to sharing a few tried and true Household and Organization Tips with you over the next few months.

In the meantime, I’m here to share a very simple and effective cleaning tip with you – how to clean stainless steel appliances until they sparkle!

We recently moved to a house with a beautifully renovated kitchen, complete with FOUR stainless steel appliances (5 if you count the gas range!). I’d never had to clean stainless steel before in my life, let alone so much of it! I tried my darnedest to avoid smudging up the surfaces and put off the cleaning as long as I could, but of course, it wasn’t long after we moved in that the fridge looked like this:

But when the culprit is so cute, there’s not much to be done about it!

Then, a friend shared a tip with us that he’d heard from a salesman at an appliance store – use mineral oil to shine stainless steel. He swore by it, and said not only did it work to shine the surface, it actually helped to keep it shiny and repel fingerprints and smudges.

ASTM A252 Piling Pipe application in buildings and retaining walls

BUT, we didn’t have any mineral oil, and I wasn’t even sure exactly what it was or where to buy it…so I figured I’d try baby oil instead! A quick Google search led me to discover that this had indeed been done before with success, so I was excited to give it a try! (Don’t have any baby oil? You can try olive oil instead!)

First, wipe down your appliances with a soft, wet rag. The baby oil will shine the surface, but won’t really clean any significant grime off of it. For really tough grime, try adding a little bit of vinegar to the wet rag. Don’t worry about any watermarks left behind by the rag, we’ll take care of those!

Then you need baby oil and a dry, soft cloth. A microfibre cloth is preferable, but I didn’t have any on hand so I used an old soft cotton t-shirt.

Put some baby oil on your cloth and then wipe it on in the direction of the grain of the stainless steel. (What? You didn’t know that stainless steel has a grain? Yeah, I didn’t either. Look closely and you’ll see that there are lots of tiny little lines all going in the same direction – can you see that mine go side to side? Wipe parallel to the the tiny lines and not perpendicular to them, otherwise you risk scratching the surface.) Then, using almost NO pressure at all, turn your cloth over to the dry side and softly buff the oil off. I ended up with a couple of streaks on my first pass, but I went over it again with some more oil and got that perfect sparkling shine I was looking for.

Now, step back and admire the sparkle! Ahhh, isn’t that nice?

And the best part, I’ve found that this method actually does repel those little munchkin fingerprints! (And I love that it’s totally safe for her – yay for chemical-free cleaning!)

I easily shined my fridge, dishwasher, oven, and microwave in less than 30 minutes. Totally worth it. And it’s amazing how even despite the dirty dishes on the counter (just pretend you can’t see them in the reflection of the microwave) the whole kitchen looks so much cleaner!

Do you have any tips for keeping your kitchen sparkling clean? I’m always looking for great ideas and tips to inspire me…especially when it comes to cleaning!

I’m looking forward to sharing another great Household and Organization Tip with you next month – until then, I’d love for you to visit me over on Facebook or Pinterest! And a big thanks to Bonnie and Trish for letting me come visit you today!