When I first moved into our new house, I was so excited about having stainless steel appliances – they looked so clean and modern.
It didn’t last.
I was used to just wiping down my appliances with a soapy cloth when they got dirty. Well, that didn’t work for my new appliances. It just made them streaky. So I went out and bought some disposable stainless steel polishing cloths, figuring that would solve my problem. They also streaked, and smelled bad. I finally ended up with some liquidy polishing stuff for stainless steel. It worked really well.
However, in my quest to find a more non-toxic solution, today I did an experiment to see what works best. In my searching for a good natural alternative, I found many ‘options’. The most prevalent were:
Non-diluted vinegar – wipe on with rag.
Isopropyl Alcohol – again, full strength, wipe on.
Olive Oil – put on rag, wipe on, then buff off with dry rag.
Baby Oil – same technique as Olive oil
Others included a soapy rag (tried that) and baking soda paste (made a huge mess), but I won’t include those.
The Vinegar didn’t work at all. Extremely streaky. Same with the Alcohol, although not as bad as the vinegar. The Olive Oil worked reasonably well, although not as well as the commercial product I have been using. Hands down, the baby oil worked the best, was every bit as good as the commerical product (and didn’t smell all chemical-y). Now, I know that baby oil is made from mineral oil & it’s a petroleum product. Olive oil, environmentally speaking, is probably the best choice. Cost-wise, baby oil is far cheaper. I suppose plain ol’mineral oil is the same too, although I’m not sure of the cost.
So, my choice is going to be baby oil for now, since I have some, and my baby girl’s skin reacts to it. I might as well use it for something.
My House is in Detox 