Stainless steel is anything but if you ask me. The "stainless" to the steel is the same as the "non-stick" to the frying pan. For the most part, it's true but I've got enough smudges on my fridge and scraped enough eggs off my pan to know there were "creative licenses" taken when they named these products.

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I'll save the non-stick rant for another time but the stainless steel thing has really bugged me. That's the fridge at my house. Yeah, it's filthy, pretty un-stainless wouldn't you say?

Granted, the appliances aren't "dirty" they just show smudges. They're kind of like glass in that sense. The way the light bounces off the appliance, really shows where the less than clean hands have grabbed the door, pushed for ice, or leaned up against while looking for that last piece of cheese.

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We have tried countless cleaning products, solutions, salves, sprays, voodoo curses, and even some non-traditional methods of making this fridge and our stove and our dishwasher look more like a home and less like an interstate gas station bathroom.

I was on a cleaning kick like I usually get on Sunday mornings and decided to see if there wasn't something I could do to make these appliances look at least a little better.

Jeshoots.com via Unsplash.com
Jeshoots.com via Unsplash.com
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I have become quite a fan of Internet hacks over the past few weeks. The aluminium foil in the dishwasher is phenomenal. The hack that solves the problem of torn bread when spreading cold butter was a game-changer. And the one that blew every single female person I knew totally away, "finding jeans that fit without trying them on" simply amazed me.

So when I stumbled across this hack from Marlene Komar that described her own issues with smudgy stainless steel I was intrigued. She too had apparently tried all the commercial cleaning products and wipes. But it was her grandmother who finally brought some peace to this perplexing problem.

Grandma's solution? Two words, Olive Oil. 

Wait, What?

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Olive oil and soft cloth and a very small amount of elbow grease are all you need to take your smudgy stainless from dingy and disgusting to health department fabulous.

Take a very small amount of olive oil and put it on your rag. Then proceed to wipe down the appliance with the rag allowing the oily part of the rag to engage with the stainless steel. The olive oil not only cleans the smudges but it puts a light protective coating on the stainless as well.

The pictures that you see in this article are all from my kitchen. Here's a great (disgusting) before photo.

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And here is the after of the same fridge.

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It truly looks better than this photograph does justice but I think you can see the difference. So, if you want your stainless steel to look more steel and less stained, do what Grandma would do. Use the olive oil and a rag and save your money on those not so impressive store-bought methods.

There are a lot of other "substitute solutions" for life's problems and in many cases, the products you have at your house to take care of one issue can be used to take care of another, take a look at this list.

11 Products That Were Invented to be Used for Something Else

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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