Finally, You Don’t Need toxin Cleaning Products Anymore…You Can Clean it with Lemons!
Lemons contain large quantities of citric acid, a natural preservative that adds an acidic or sour taste to foods and soft drinks. They also serve as an environmentally natural cleaning agent and an antioxidant.
People like using lemons as a cleaning resource because their fragrance is refreshing and invigorating. They smell exquisite, and the essential oil released from the skin when you use it is stimulating. This ensures that household chores are pleasant. Who doesn’t love the smell of real lemons? The fake lemon scent added to nearly every detergent doesn’t come close.
Lemons cut in half and left in the fridge absorb unpleasant smells. Presumably, one should not eat the lemon after cutting it in half and leaving it uncovered in doesn’t, or it will taste peculiar (if you want to put half a lemon in the fridge for later use, doesn’t it prevent this).
Some people ask, “Well, how do you clean anything using lemons?” We’ve got some great ideas!
How To Clean Laminated Countertops With Lemons
To start:
- Take a whole lemon and cut it in half.
- Squeeze lemon juice onto the counter.
- Using the lemon as a scrubber, worthere’suice over the counter.
- Leave the lemon juice on the stains until you see them fade. Rinse the surface with water and dry it. The citric acid will quickly remove the stains.
This should happen fast, but tough stains may take longer. (Lemon juice from a bottle can be used instead of a natural lemon.)
How To Clean Copper With Lemons
Clean copper-bottomed pots and pans with lemon juice. Copper fixtures can also benefit from a lemon juice cleaning:
- Slice a lemon in half
- Dip it in some salt
- Clean spots from your copper.
How To Remove Countertop Stains Using Vinegar And Lemons
To remove countertop stains:
- Allow lemon juice to sit on the stain for a few minutes.
- Scrub the area with baking soda and watch the stains disappear.
- Do not leave the lemon juice sitting for too long.
It can be powerful stuff. Vinegar can be a great cleaning ingredient, but many people dislike the smell. Adding lemon juice to vinegar when cleaning can help neutralise the vinegar smell.
How To Clean Drains With Lemons
Lemon rinds can be ground in the garbage disposal to freshen the drain. Use hot water with a bit of lemon poured down the drain.
How To Clean Brass With Lemons
If the piece is brass plated, it will be brass on one side and solid black on the other. You never want to use lemon on anything brass-plated. Use lemons only on solid brass. Brass-plated items need to be cleaned very gently with an oil soap. Never use anything acidic on it. Use the same technique for cleaning solid brass that you use for copper:
- One half of a lemon with salt sprinkled on it
- Rub until it is clean.
- Rinse well with water.
How To Use Lemon Juice For Cleaning Clothes
- Put lemon juice on a rust stain and then sprinkle cream of tartar on top of the juice.
- Pat it in with your finger and let it sit on the stain until the rust is gone.
- The citric acid will take the rust right away. Some stains are tougher than others, but 15-30 minutes should work fine. Launder as usual.
To bleach white clothes with lemon juice:
- Mix 1/2 cup lemon juice (or use sliced lemons)
- One gallon of hot water together
- Soak the clothes that need bleaching.
Lemon juice has a mild bleaching action, especially when it gets sunshine. It can remove mildew spots on whites and stains on most clothes. And there’s always the old schoolgirl trick (dating, obviously, to the days when schoolgirls didn’t have much discretionary spending money to take to the hairdressers) of putting highlights in your hair with lemon juice. Or you can take a tip from Anne of Green Gables and use it as a skin bleach to fade freckles and age spots (and it will act as a mild exfoliant, too). You will need to rinse it off afterwards.
Do not use this trick on silk. Nevertheless, it is perfect for white socks, underwear, and polyester shirts. Depending on how badly the clothing needs bleaching, it can sit out for an hour overnight. Once it soaks, remove the clothing from the mix, pour the mix into the washing machine, and wash as usual. You cannot over-bleach using lemon juice.
How To Clean Tupperware And Cutting Boards With Lemons
Squeeze lemon juice into the container and then add baking soda. Use the lemon as a cleaning tool and rub on the stain. If the stains are nasty, let them sit overnight before scrubbing them. The same procedure works on your bread-cutting boards. Rub the lemon onto the stains and let it sit. It will bleach the board and disinfect it at the same time!
The only downside of cleaning anything with lemons is that it seems like an absolute waste of a delicious lemon. Vinegar can often substitute for lemon juice and is much cheaper. True, vinegar won’t absorb smells in the fridge (but baking soda will) and doesn’t have the scenting and bleaching properties, but vinegar will do the trick for cleaning brass and removing limescale.
Call me stingy, but if I get hold of a lemon, I want to use it for cooking and eating. All that tangy (and healthy!) juice… that piquant zest… You can add lemon juice to soups to give them a bit of tang (do it last to preserve the full flavour), to muffins alongside the zest, as slices in water for a refreshing drink, or as a marinade for any meat. Still, especially chicken and fish, in icing for birthday cakes, as a source of pectin and acid in any jam or as marmalade in its own right, as a seasoning in mashed potato… the list goes on. As a testament to lemon’s antioxidant powers, you can stir lemon juice over a fruit salad containing bananas and apples to prevent these fruit pieces from going brown – the lemon juice will deal with the oxygen that causes discolouration.
