Spring cleaning can be a real pain and lead to a feeling of desperation. Our homes are full of big and small messes, which require a lot of scrubbing and standing on our knees to be fixed. In addition, the cleaning products we use often smell bad and are downright toxic. Fortunately, there are a few neat and extraordinary cleaning tricks, which will help you clean those nasty messes easily and will save you time and effort. Sometimes even the least suspected items around the house can turn into a valuable cleaning tool. Some of these tricks are so surprising and convenient, that you’ll want to use them all year round. Read on and find out how to save time and make your home sparkle:
Battle odours with used coffee grounds
Coffee grounds are a wonderful natural substitution for some detergents and air-fresheners. It’s of great help in the battle with greasy dishes, for example. Simply put some coffee grounds on a cleaning cloth and scrub away all the dirt and grease. This will not only leave the dishes sparkling clean but also neutralize any lingering food stench. Another handy tip is to clean the sink and drain with the coffee leftover product, or just pour it down the pipe to fight unpleasant odour. If you already keep to a sustainable lifestyle and prefer eco-friendly house cleaning, then coffee grounds will fit right in.
You can also use old coffee grounds to scour the sink and bathtub, as well as clean stubborn burnt food off your grill. They 1`also help sanitize the surface thanks to their strong antibacterial and antiviral properties. You just need to be careful and not use them on any porous surfaces, because they can cause brown stains, which will be hard to remove.
Cola can destroy dirt as well as teeth
Many people don’t even suspect that fact, because once you spill cola on a surface, it becomes sticky and unpleasant. However, at the same time, this magical drink picks up and dissolves all kinds of gunk and dirt. The same carbonation, which makes your cola so refreshing, also turns it into a great cleaning agent.
The best use for cola is on hard-to-reach spots, which are prone to buildup, such as tile grout. Take a bottle of cola and pour it over the tile grout. Let it sit and work its magic for about 10-20 minutes. After the bubbles die down, wipe up the area with a rag. If the stains are very old, giving the area a quick scrub with an old toothbrush should help. You can also clean bathroom features with cola, such as the toilet or the sink.
Cola is great for stain removal as well. For instance, it can help you descale your kettle without scrubbing – just fill it with cola, boil it and leave it for around 30 minutes. Then empty the kettle, fill it with water and boil again. It will be good as new. You can try the same trick on rust or greasy stains on concrete – soak the affected area in cola for a few hours, scrub a little and watch as the dirt disappears. Since coke is not abrasive, you can even use it to loosen stubborn dirt inside toilets and sinks, without worrying about scratching the surface.
Use white wine for quick stain removal
Keeping a bottle of white wine in your fridge is essential, and not only for drinking. White wine is also the perfect cleaning supply for those tragic moments when you accidentally spill red wine on your carpet or clothing. The chemicals in the white wine neutralize those in the red wine and make your home sparkle, making the red stains significantly easier to lift out of fabrics.
All you need to do is pour the white wine onto the stain immediately after the spill and blot out the pigment with a clean towel. It’s important to blot and not scrub. Wiping will only make the stain worse and work it deep into the fabric.
Bread can clean stains off walls
Bread is not only a delicious addition to your meal; it can also help you fix some major messes around the house. For once, if you roll a slice of de-crusted bread, you can use it as a natural eraser, and not only for pencil marks. The bread substance is perfect for lifting smudges and marks from walls, kitchen cupboards, wallpapers, and a lot more. The soft surface doesn’t leave scratches and the gluten in the bread absorbs all kinds of dirt. And you don’t even have to rub, just dab a couple of times and watch the stain disappear. Another great use for bread is to pick up broken glass and microscopic shards without hurting yourself and make your home sparkle.
Walnuts and olive oil can restore wooden surfaces
If your wooden furniture has scratches on it, the easiest way to cover them is by rubbing raw walnuts on the surface. It won’t make the marks disappear, but it will give your furniture that brown color back and the scratches will be almost unnoticeable.
On the other hand, olive oil can help you restore the shine to your wooden furniture naturally. All you need to do is place a few drops on a soft towel and wipe the furniture gently. Also, never spray wooden furniture directly with anything, because this will leave small marks that will make your home sparkle and it will be visible over time.
Disposable razors can double as lint removers
Your razor is already dull and it’s not cutting as it should? Before you throw it away, you should know that disposable razors are also the perfect budget lint removers. All you need to do is run the blades slightly across the clothing you want to fix and be amazed by the result. It’s also a great solution for paint stains and for refreshing old shirts with fuzzes and strings hanging from them. The razor blades will loosen the extra materials sticking to the fabric and shave them off for a clean finish.
Dryer sheets are great rags
Dryer sheets are awesome for softening fabrics and catching lint. It’s a real shame most people throw them away after only one use. Fortunately, some smart people figured out that dryer sheets could act as perfect rags to help you clean household messes. Their special texture makes them perfect for picking up dust, and you can easily wipe your entire house without investing in Swiffers. You can also easily remove pet lint from your clothes and furniture, wipe your window blinds, ceiling fans and baseboards clean, as well as any decorative features. And since they remove static electricity, all these surfaces will stay clean for longer.
Other great uses for old dryer sheets is to wipe liquids and to buff out water stains and soap scum from all kinds of surfaces. It also works great in the kitchen for picking up dry spills, like flour or sugar. If you’d like to take advantage of your used dryer sheets, just put a bin next to your dryer and gather them in it.
Clean mirrors with coffee filters
Coffee filters, just like dryer sheets, are perfect for taking care of smudges from glass surfaces and mirrors and leaving them without streaks. If you have a coffee machine that uses filters, or you have some old filters lying around, you can really put them to good use and make your home sparkle. All you need to do for a flawless finish is to clean the mirror or window as usual, then wipe it with a clean coffee filter as a finish. It’s a way better option than towels because the filters are lint-free.
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