Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a magic button that could clean and tidy our entire home in an instant? Unfortunately, we can’t help with that—but we can make cleaning your home a bit easier. Ahead, find seven home cleaning hacks that really work, even though they sound like they shouldn’t.
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SHOP CLEANING |
Clean Silver With A Banana
We’re still not sure how this works better than store-bought jewelry cleaner, but alas: Toss a few banana peels in the blender with a splash of water to make a paste. Using a soft cloth or toothbrush, begin to work the paste around your silver piece. Finish by dipping the silver into a water bath and work off any remaining paste. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!
Deodorize Your Fridge With Coffee
Before you compost your old coffee grinds, get one more use out of them: getting smells out of your fridge or freezer. Leave a full bowl of ground coffee overnight, and the grounds will absorb all sorts of odors. Then dump the grounds into your compost or potted plants as fertilizer. (You can also use this trick for your laundry room or any other room that gets musty.)
Clean Caked-On Dishes With A Dryer Sheet
We tested it: Pour warm water into your dirty dish. (We used a casserole dish.) Then place a dryer sheet on the surface of the water and let it sit for about 20 minutes. If it’s really caked on, you can leave it overnight—either way, you can wipe the dish with a wet sponge and then wash like normal and dry. Anything that was previously caked on will lift right off.
Dust With A Lint Roller
I used this trick when I knew friends were coming over but my vacuum cleaner had completely died. Instead of using a feather duster on surfaces or a vacuum on carpets, simply use a lint roller. It won’t get every speck, but it’s a great hack for a quick and obvious clean-up, especially on low-pile carpets.
Salt Your Iron
This sounds like an outdated idiom, but it’s really a great hack for cleaning any residue on your iron: Turn the iron on to the highest setting and let it heat up, then pour a generous amount of salt on a stack of paper towels. Run the iron over the salted paper towel slowly for about a minute: any dirt or sticky residue will stick to the salt, leaving you with a clean and shiny iron.
Clean Your Windows With Coffee Filters
If you don’t have a microfiber towel on hand, you may notice that paper or other cotton towels can leave some streaks on your windows, even if you’re using a streak-free Glass Cleaner like ours. Instead, sub out the towel for coffee filters, which are so absorbent that they can reduce the amount of residue that sticks around.
Clean Crevices With A Chopstick
If you’ve cut Q-Tips out of your routine shopping list, use this trick that you’ve definitely seen at the nail salon to clean around crevices like your faucets: Wrap the tip of a chopstick with a cotton ball, then dip it in some All-Purpose Cleaner. Et voila: You have an extra hand that can reach just about anywhere.
Hopefully one of these tricks can save you some time and money!
xx L
