Hive Tip: Clean Stainless-Steel Appliances and Kitchen Items the Right Way

If you spend any time in the kitchen, you should probably know how to clean stainless steel. Trust us, just because a material is called “stainless” doesn’t mean it can’t get dirty, and nothing makes a kitchen more unappetizing than appliances covered in smudges, grime, and other buildup.

1. Assess the damage

When it comes to stainless steel, not all messes are the same, meaning not all cleaning methods will be the same either. Smudges and hard water stains may come off pretty easily with a simple wipe down, whereas caked-on food or other more intense buildup may require a more serious product—and more elbow grease on your part. So make sure you know what you’re up against before grabbing all of your supplies.

​2. Prep your supplies

For a simple DIY cleaning solution, you’ll need white vinegar, lemon juice, and tap water. Fill a spray bottle with equal parts water and white vinegar. You can add a few drops of lemon juice to make the mixture smell better. After you’ve made your solution, be sure to grab some olive oil, dish liquid, and microfiber cloths because you’ll be using those too. For really tough grime, like caked-on grease, you may need to explore different methods. Stock up on either a store-bought stainless-steel cleaner or some baking soda.

No matter what cleaning solution you choose, there are a few things you should always avoid. Never use steel wool, scouring powders, ammonia, or bleach on your kitchen appliances—they can all be just a little too intense and damage the finish. The same goes if you’re wondering how to clean a stainless-steel sink.

3. Go with the grain

When cleaning stainless steel, there is one general rule: wipe along the direction of the grain. You’ll want to spray your vinegar and water solution onto the surface then wipe following the material’s grain. This should take care of most of your daily messes, things like water spots and finger smudges. For that residue that just won’t come off, try sprinkling a bit of baking soda on the surface, then applying white vinegar (whether with a spray bottle or kitchen towel). Once you’ve done this, wipe with a soft cloth or paper towel and rinse with warm water.

4. Touch up with some dish soap

Once all fingerprints and grime have been removed, wet a second microfiber cloth with water and apply a few drops of dish soap. You’ll want to gently wipe this dishwashing liquid solution across the surface. After, rinse out the soapy cloth and wipe the surface once more to remove any lingering soap.

5. Seal with olive oil

Now that you’ve put in all that effort to get your stainless-steel surfaces clean, you’ll likely want to keep them that way. Luckily, something as simple as olive oil can help you do that. Olive oil acts as a protective coating that can help to protect in between deep cleaning sessions, it can also help repel smudges and mask previous scratches. You’ll want to put a small amount of olive oil on a microfiber cloth and wipe it gently back and forth along the grain.

6. Buff and polish

There are two parts to managing stainless steel: the actual cleaning stage, and the polishing stage. Polishing will make sure the surface isn’t just clean, but also shining. This step can also be accomplished with a microfiber cloth and some olive oil, but the technique will be a little different. Polishing is best done in a circular motion, but there is rarely an issue with going with or against the grain in the polishing stage. Take a small amount of olive oil on a microfiber cloth and buff it into the appliance, working in small circular motions. Your appliance will be sparkling in no time!

Busy Bee: Detox your home, one room at a time

Many (potentially) harmful chemicals that are regulated or outright banned in other countries are unregulated in the US. and they end up in our homes. It’s difficult enough to read a label on a supplement or beauty product and sort out what’s safe and what’s not. But harmful chemicals hiding in furniture, mattresses, and other home products may be even harder to catch. Even when brands claim their products are made with healthier materials, it’s difficult to verify whether those claims can be trusted. Terms like “natural,” “green,” and “clean” aren’t regulated, so you can’t rely on those labels to tell you whether a product is safe. Instead, you should look for third-party certifications that can guarantee a product lives up to its claims.

We’re not suggesting throwing out everything you own. But when an opportunity comes along to make a healthier choice, consider taking it. Replace conventional cleaning products as you go through them, swap out your old candles for ones made with a transparent ingredient list, and toss your nonstick pans when they start to get scratched up. Appliances that remove toxicants from your home environment—like air purifiers and water filters—make a big difference, too. Read on for some of our top swap suggestions and products!

Bedroom

• Considering how much time you spend in contact with your bed—sleeping, sex, spending a long morning with a latte and a book—a mattress made with safe materials is critical. Any mattress brand that claims it is nontoxic, natural, or organic should provide legitimate third-party certifications that ensure that your mattress contains no petroleum-based polyurethane foams, flame retardants, or any other potentially harmful chemicals that could off-gas into your home and pollute the air. Look for: Made Safe to confirm a mattress is nontoxic; Greenguard Gold to confirm it’s low-emissions; and GOTS, GOLS, and USDA Organic to confirm its materials are organic.

• For your nightstand: an air purifier to remove indoor pollutants that might affect your sleep quality and your health.

• A single-occupancy sauna that stashes under the bed is the detox tool we didn’t know we needed. Wrap yourself up in it, let the infrared heat do its thing, and emerge feeling brand-new.

Bathroom

• The process used to bleach paper products, including toilet paper, creates chemicals called dioxins and furans, which can irritate the skin. Which is why we recommend switching to bamboo toilet paper, which is free of chlorine bleach, fragrance, dyes, and BPA plastic packaging! And because bamboo doesn’t require nearly as much water, space, or time to grow as wood does, it’s also much less taxing on the environment than conventional TP, which is responsible for between 10-15% of deforestation worldwide, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

• If you would prefer to avoid fluoride toothpastes, choose something made with nano-hydroxyapatite (n-Ha) instead. N-Ha is a compound that works to remove plaque and desensitize and remineralize teeth. It’s been the gold-standard ingredient in Japan for decades. We like the toothpastes from BOKA and Bite.

• Consider switching out your floss, too: Certain dental flosses are reported to be made from Teflon and have been found to contain PFAS, a compound that is considered a “forever chemical” because it never naturally breaks down. Cocofloss, a cleaner alternative, has a cult following for how pleasant it is to use—and it feels like it does a better job, anyway.

Kitchen

• Skip conventional nonstick—it’s made with synthetic plastic coatings like Teflon that might leech PFOAs into your food if the coating gets damaged. Instead, choose cookware made with stainless steel, cast-iron, and nontoxic ceramic.

• Plastic baggies are typically made from polyethylene or polypropylene and often get tossed after a single use. Stasher’s silicone bags contain none of that nonsense and last about 3,000 uses—after which you can return them to Stasher, which will repurpose the silicone into playground pebbles. So cool!

Living Room

• Conventional candles, air fresheners, and room sprays use any number of endocrine disruptors, skin and lung irritants, and potentially toxic compounds as fragrance. Which is why we opt for clean, soy-based candles and well-made essential oils from companies that are transparent about their ingredient lists. vitruvi makes some of our all-time most-loved essential oils.

Laundry Room

• Conventionally-fragranced laundry detergents contain hormone-disrupting phthalates, which are used to make fragrances stick. Dropps laundry tablets are made without phthalates, parabens, or ammonia, and they’re made without plastic, either! (The water-soluble plastic used for conventional detergent pods may seem to disappear in the wash, but about 75 percent of it does not biodegrade and ends up in the environment as microplastics.)

• Fabric softeners and dryer sheets don’t actually soften the fibers in your clothes and linens—they work by depositing a coating of positively charged particles onto your laundry, which reduces static between layers of fabric. They may also come loaded with preservatives, colorants, quaternary ammonium compounds (which can trigger asthma and disrupt reproductive health), and fragrance. The Environmental Working Group recommends trading in-wash fabric softener for distilled white vinegar and dryer sheets for wool dryer balls.