How to Clean Your Stainless Steel Appliances

Stainless steel is often a huge challenge for homeowners to keep clean. It easily shows fingerprints and can sometimes look streaky. If you’re a new homeowner or you’ve never had stainless steel appliances, your experience with them may be quite limited. But if you already have stainless steel appliances then you may know that there are tons of products on the market for cleaning them and most of them don’t work.

So how do you clean your stainless steel appliances?

It’s important to know that there are several types of stainless steel in order to know how to clean your appliances. You might have to do some experimenting before you actually find the trick of the trade. Each appliance might require a slightly different method for cleaning. But nonetheless, there are a few things that remain the same when it comes to cleaning stainless steel.

Do…

Use a microfiber rag.

Wipe the surface with the grain versus against.

Shine the surface when you’re done.

DIY Solutions

Remember how we talked about experimenting with your stainless steel? Well, we have found the top three DIY solutions to make for cleaning your stainless steel. One, if not all, of these methods, are bound to work for your appliances.

Tea Tree Oil 

Taking an empty spray bottle filled with water and about 8 to 10 drop of tea tree oil makes the perfect stainless steel appliance cleaner. Not only does this DIY cleaner make your appliances shine, the tea tree oil helps disinfect the surface with its antibacterial properties. Spray the solution on your appliance and wipe (with the grain) using your microfiber cleaning cloth.

Vinegar & Olive Oil

Similar to the tea tree oil solution, another option is to use vinegar. Fill your spray bottle with 1 part water and 1 part apple cider vinegar. Spray the solution on your appliance and wipe (with the grain) using your microfiber rag. Once you’re done apply a small amount of baby oil to your rag and slowly wipe (again with the grain) your appliance. The olive oil will help it shine and remove any streaks from the vinegar.

Dish Soap & Baby oil

Using Dawn dish soap and a microfiber cloth wipe down your appliance (against the grain). No need to water down your soap. But you can get your rag slightly damp if you’d like. When you’re done take some baby oil and wipe over your surface to remove any streaks from the soap and to make it shine.

In-Store Solutions

As we no know, most products on the market don’t work like they claim for cleaning your stainless steel. There are, however, a couple products that work on certain stainless steel surfaces.

Simple Green Stainless Steel Cleaner

For best results use this cleaner with a microfiber cleaning cloth. Microfiber cleaning cloths were made for cleaning. Unlike paper towel, they don’t absorb solutions or leave a paper trail. This makes them more viable cleaning tool.

Weiman Stainless Steel Wipes

Weiman actually has several products for cleaning stainless steel. But I’ve found their wipes to be most efficient in the kitchen. They’re handy and they don’t require a microfiber rag. Although microfiber rags are still the best for cleaning. These wipes are just simple. And they get the job done.