Lemons are the perfect addition to your fruit bowl, adding a zesty flavour to cakes, tartness to pancakes and flavouring water, however, there’s more than meets the eye with the citrus fruit. More of us are opting for natural cleaners, and our cupboards are the perfect place to start – with baking powder and white vinegar the top choices for natural cleaning tools. However, lemon can shift stains, freshen surfaces and remove odours with ease.
Not only that but cleaning with lemon can save you around £220.68 a year.
A pack of five lemons costs as little as 68p, while the cost of cleaning products combined to clean all of the items listed below would be £19.75.
If bought monthly this would amount to £237 a year whereas if you bought two packs of five lemons a month it would set you back only £16.32 a year – saving you a total of £220.68 per year.
So Tap Warehouse has compiled a list of ten kitchen cleaning hacks using lemon juice.
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3. Descale your kettle with lemon juice and water
Add half lemon juice and half cold water to your kettle, fill until it is almost full.
Leave to stand for an hour so the natural acid from the lemon juice can breakdown the limescale.
Once an hour has passed boil the kettle and the limescale should fade away.
4. Make your sink look brand new with lemon juice and baking soda
First, start by creating a paste with baking soda and lemon juice.
Once your paste has a thick texture get a clean cloth and scrub the mixture into the sink.
The combination of the citric acid in the lemon juice and the natural abrasiveness of baking soda should remove any dirt and grime from your sink – leaving it looking sparkling clean.
5. Make your pots and pans grease-free with lemon juice
Grease can be a hard thing to shift from pots and pans, and can often leave you feeling frustrated and with house of soaking time.
But if you squeeze lemon juice onto the offending pot or pan with a little bit of washing up liquid, then the acid from the lemon juice will do its magic to banish the grease for good.
6. Banish smells from wooden chopping boards with lemon juice
Can’t get rid of the smell from the garlic you chopped?
Sprinkle a thin layer of salt across the chopping board, cut a lemon in half, and scrub for two to three minutes.
After soak the chopping board in hot water with the juice from the other half of the lemon for five minutes. Then leave to dry.
7. Leave your fridge smelling fresh all year round with lemon slices
We’ve all opened up our fridge to an unpleasant smell left behind from certain foods.
However, one way to combat this is by placing a few slices of lemon on a plate and leaving them to sit in your fridge.
The slices will soak up any smells and leave your fridge smelling lemon fresh.
Don’t forget to swap out the slices every week to ensure they’re fresh!
8. Make stainless steel utensils and appliances sparkling clean with lemon juice
We all have stainless steel utensils and appliances which no matter how hard we scrub we can’t remove stubborn heat stains from.
Lemon juice is a powerful natural acid for removing heat stains and streaks from stainless steel.
Grab a clean cloth and soak it with freshly squeezed lemon juice, scrub the stainless steel with the cloth until all marks have vanished.
Repeat the process if any stubborn stains are still showing, then rinse and dry with a microfibre cloth.
9. Freshen up your dishwasher with lemon juice
Deodorising your dishwasher can be a difficult task.
Place a cup of lemon juice on the bottom rack of your dishwasher and run the rinse cycle.
Not only will this leave your dishwasher smelling lemon-fresh it will give it a good clean too.
10. Banish countertop stains with lemon juice
We all know how easy it is to get stains on our kitchen countertops and how difficult they can be to scrub away.
Try squeezing lemon juice on top of the stains and let it sit for a couple of minutes.
As lemons are acidic don’t let this sit for more than two minutes.
Add baking soda on top and use a damp cloth to scrub the stain away.
However, don’t use baking soda on a marble countertop as it could scratch it.