By now, I'm sure you all know that I love cleaning with baking soda,
and the same goes for vinegar and dish soap and rubbing alcohol.
In fact, we've made videos about each and every member of this cleaning
royal family, and this week I'm going to introduce you to another family member,
His Royal Highness, Lord Lemon. His scent is fresh, clean, and energizing.
He is quite inexpensive and easy to come by too.
I know sometimes it can be hard to find white vinegar in certain countries.
But lemons? I think we're all good.
Lemons contain both acidity found in the juice, along with the grease-cutting oil
contained within its skin, to create a superb cleaning sidekick.
This beautiful, acidic, multi-purpose, yellow gem can be used to clean
countless things around the house and has so many other great uses
outside of cleaning as well. But this week we've got 10 great uses
for cleaning with lemons lined up, and, as I like to say, when life hands
you lemons, you start cleaning. We all know, I hope at least by now,
that leaving a box of baking soda in the fridge will help manage unpleasant odors.
But did you know you can do the same thing with a lemon?
That's right, and there are a few ways to accomplish this.
You can either soak a cotton ball in lemon juice and put that in a
little bowl in the fridge, you can leave a small bowl of fresh-squeezed lemon juice
in the fridge, or you can even cut a lemon in half
and leave it in a small bowl flesh up.
You're going to want to change it out every week or so, or else you'll replace
that funky smell in your fridge with the smell of rotting lemons, which is not hot.
You'd be surprised just how easy it is to tackle even the most stubborn stains
inside your microwave using nothing more than a lemon and a bowl of water.
Simply cut the lemon in half and squeeze each half of the lemon into a bowl,
which is filled halfway with water, then place the rest of the lemon,
skins and everything, into the bowl and place it inside your microwave.
Set the timer for about three to five minutes and cook it
on the highest setting available. Once it beeps, let the microwave
cool down for five minutes or so and prepare for a very easy cleanup.
The lemon will eliminate nasty odors, and the steam will mix with all of the
lemon oils and loosen all of that buildup on the inside of the chamber.
Now you can just wipe everything away
using a paper towel or a clean, damp cloth.
Cheese graters are excellent for grating cheese and horrible at staying clean.
Bits of cheese get stuck inside that cheese grater, and even after you pull it
out of the dishwasher you still might see some of that cheese remaining.
So for an easy way to clean your grater, just cut a lemon in half and then grate
the fleshy side of the lemon on both sides of your cheese grater.
The lemon oil and juice will help cut the dairy fat and break up
any of those stubborn proteins. After a quick rinse, you should find
that the lemon does an excellent job
and it also saves you from ripping apart your sponges.
We made a video about this a while back,
but the trick is so good I had to share it again.
All you need is a little bit of coarse salt and, you guessed it, a lemon.
Sprinkle the salt all over the entire surface of your wood cutting board
and use half a lemon, juicy side down,
and as much elbow grease as you can give her.
Scrub as thoroughly as you can and you'll discover that food stains
will start to disappear. You'll also be deodorizing your
cutting board at the same time. Once you've rinsed and dried everything,
consider finishing this up with a hit of mineral oil to protect your board.
I've got the video linked down below for you
so you can check everything out in that one.
If you are a heavy duty kettle user like I am,
here's a handy tip to easily descale your kettle.
Simply mix one ounce of lemon juice to two cups of water
and pour that into your kettle. Bring it to a boil and then let it cool.
Empty out the kettle and give it a few good rinses and voila,
your kettle should be shiny and clean once again.
For those that just can't stand the smell of vinegar, and I know
there are many of you, do I have a glass and mirror cleaner for you.
Squeeze about three tablespoons of lemon juice into a spray bottle
and then add about a cup of water.
Next, you'll shake up the bottle and spray your mirror or glass down.
Then, just wipe away using a clean microfiber cloth,
and there you go, that easy.
As is the case with many videos here at Clean My Space,
we find ourselves beside the toilet once again.
But this time for good reason because I'm here to show you a great way to use
lemon juice and salt to rid yourself of ring around the toilet bowl.
All you need is a half lemon, which you will squeeze into the bowl, and then
sprinkle in some coarse salt and finally use your toilet bowl brush to give
the bowl a good scrub. Now for added scrubbing power,
you can throw some baking soda or Borax into that mix, and for
the less squeamish, you can avoid the first thing we talked about
and simply add your salt directly to the half of the lemon, glove up,
and use that instead of a brush or a sponge to scrub away the ring.
Since I'm so comfortably perched on the tiny ledge of my bathtub here,
we might as well talk about soap scum, and yes there is more than one way
to conquer soap scum in your shower and one of my favorites involves
nothing more than simple lemon juice.
Just apply the lemon juice directly to the area using a sponge or,
better yet, a spray bottle. Allow it to sit for a minute and then wipe
clean using a clean, damp cloth. Thanks to the acidity contained
within the lemon, soap scum actually struggles to stick around under
Lord Lemon's mighty power.
This also works great on glass shower doors and even in the bathtub.
What's one more awkward bathtub angle?
There's nothing quite like the appeal of a shiny, streak-free faucet.
So whether yours are made of chrome, brass, or even copper,
here's a hassle-free way to make them sparkle with lemon power.
All you have to do is cut a lemon in half and that's it, seriously.
Just work the fleshy part of the lemon directly onto the faucet, making sure you
get into all of those little nooks and crannies where the acidic juices
will cut through grease and loosen mineral deposits.
Finish up by wiping everything away using a clean, dry microfiber cloth.
Finally, when you're done using the lemon for all of the other great cleaning tasks
we just talked about, you can use the peels and any other remains
to clean out your garbage disposal. Now, I don't have a garbage disposal
to demonstrate on, but if you did have one, all you have to do is drop the
lemon remains in the sink and turn on the garbage disposal, which would probably
sound something like this [garbage disposal sound] and you're good to go.
The lemon bits will freshen the garbage disposal parts and even deodorize it.
So it's a true two-in-one solution.
Oftentimes when I finish cooking with a lemon,
I'll try to use it to do a secondary cleaning task like one of the
ones we just covered, cleaning the cutting board, the microwave, shining up
some chrome, or if I had a garbage disposal, I'd be cleaning that.
But now you'll always find a way to get a second life out of that lemon.
I recommend using a fresh lemon whenever possible to do these tasks.
You can use the bottled stuff if you need to, but I believe that a lot of the value
comes from the skin where the lemon oil is contained.
So just keep that one in mind.
This week's comment question is:
Which member of the cleaning royal family is your favorite?
Let me know down below because I love reading your comments.
There's a button down there that lets me knows you care, so click it if you liked
this video, and also click this button right here to subscribe
and begin your journey to a cleaner life.
Stick around for another couple of minutes while I get back to
some comments from last week's video and make some great
recommendations for some other Clean My Space videos that you might enjoy.
As always, thanks so much for watching, and we'll see you next time.
And now it's that magical time of the week where I get to respond to your comments.
The first comment comes from the "Cline five."
They left a long comment. I'm just going to read the beginning part.
"Hey there, I just found this channel, so I don't know if you've done a video on
this before, but I am curious if you have any suggestions for ant killer?"
And we actually do have a suggestion for that.
It is hidden within our "10 More Uses for Baking Soda" video, so we will link
that for you down below. Check it out. Bye-bye to ants.
Next question comes from kshell09. "Hey Melissa, love this video.
Random question. Did you get your graphic tee
at Banana Republic Factory Store? I work there and I've seen you
wear stuff from our store in several videos."
Okay, secret's out.
I got it at Banana Republic Factory. There you go.
Girlnotgreat84, sometimes the names are hard to read.
I'm sorry guys, but I'll get to it.
"Where do you find all your spray bottles? I have not been able to find cute
spray bottles for cleaning at all. I found one at my local Dollar Store,
but they only had green in stock. And then I bought some from Walmart,
but they stopped working after the third or fourth use."
Okay, I have looked far and wide for a variety of cleaning spray bottles.
I find them in all kinds of random, weird places, like, you know,
small garden centers, and honestly when I find them, I hoard them.
So all I can tell you is keep your eyes peeled and ask around and, you know,
just look in little random stores that you wouldn't necessarily expect
to sell spray bottles, like garden stores or drug stores,
and I'm sure you'll come across something.
I wish I had more info for you, but I don't guys, sorry.
Mydaughtermyworld says, "Melissa whenever you're introducing
essential oils into a cleaning solution, you must either use a
glass or aluminum bottle. Plastic will not keep the oil effective,
and it will leech out into the product." So this is a good point.
Yes, it's true, if you are using essential oils and you are planning on keeping
your products for a long time, it is best to use glass or aluminum.
But as we've learned, it's really hard to come across spray bottles period.
So I've always just tried to do my best. I've used plastic.
I go through my stuff pretty quickly, so it's not sitting for two, three months.
But yes, if you look at the higher end cleaning products that contain
essential oils, they will all be in dark glass bottles.
So if you can find them, do that.
And Diana Valatin says, "Have you always eaten healthy,
or did something in your life make you want to change?"
Yeah, that something would be a doctor. I stopped eating gluten, sugar, and dairy
and some other stuff when I was about 18 years old, and I did that because
I was having acne issues that I couldn't get rid of and I was also
having IBS that I was really struggling with.
So I had some allergy tests done, and the doctors basically told me
I had to go off all kinds of stuff, and I did that, and things in my body started
to change for the better, and that is why I don't eat that way anymore.
If I could, I'd be eating pasta and chocolate cake till the cows came home.
Anyway guys, it was great reading your comments as usual.
Thank you so much, and I will see you again next week. Until then.