A Cleaning Guide to Sparkling Stainless Steel Appliances

Do you have stainless steel appliances in your home that are looking a little worse for wear? Do you wish that you could do something to make them look a bit fresher and newer? Well, then we have some tips that will help you reinvigorate your stainless-steel appliances and give them that same spotless look they had when you first bought them, in many cases.

You’re going to see hard water marks on your stainless-steel appliances, as well as lots of fingerprints. This is especially true on the handles, where people tend to touch them the most. Over time, those accumulate to create a dirty, dark look on previously shiny appliances. You can get an amazingly beautiful appearance out of items in your kitchen that are years old.

Clean with Vinegar and Oil

This may sound like an odd combination of ingredients and better suited for a salad dressing than a kitchen cleaner, but trust me, it definitely works. You can use olive oil or any type of mineral oil and some vinegar. You don’t mix them, though. You fill a spray bottle with vinegar and spray liberally onto the appliance, especially getting the places where you see fingerprints and dirty marks.

Then use a soft microfiber cloth and wipe down the vinegar. Be sure to wipe in the direction of the steel grain. If you look closely, you can see either vertical or horizontal markings on the steel. Once the vinegar has been removed, you can take the cloth, dipped into your oil, and use it to polish the appliance. When that is done, it should look shiny again.

Clean with WD-40

You may need to use a different cleaning method for some appliances or some types of stainless steel. You may also not have the right ingredients to do some of the cleaning methods that we recommend. In that case, you can always try an alternative method. One of the simplest and hassle-free methods we have found is to use simple WD-40 to clean your appliances. You just spray it and wipe it down, and that should do the trick. The advantage to using this method, besides the utter simplicity of it, is that it gives your appliance a protective layer that repels fingerprints in the future. You can also use this method to clean your notebooks.

Clean with Flour

You can also use plain flour to clean your stainless steel off. This works best if you do it in the sink or somewhere else you aren’t likely to make a mess, so we mostly recommend this method for cleaning pots and pans made from stainless steel.

You can just rub the flour all over the steel item and then massage it in a circular motion to work away the prints and markings. This is incredibly effective and very simple, and even if you don’t have the other things we suggested as cleaning agents, most people have flour in their home. It is probably the cheapest way to clean your stainless steel, and it’s pretty foolproof as well.

Protect against Stains, Corrosion and Marks

You should realize by now that stainless steel is not free from stains. It simply has a lower chance of staining and streaking than regular steel. It can also corrode and rust over time, and that can severely damage the look and structure of the appliance. You can prevent these problems from occurring if you use protective coatings for your appliances.

There are a number of products that are marketed as protective coverings for your stainless-steel products. Any one of them is just fine to use, but you need to do some prep work first. You can’t just apply a protective coating to your appliances before you get them clean and free from rust and stains. If there is some corrosion occurring to your appliances, you need to scrape that off. You can use a paint scraper or some other flat, hard tool. Do not use a metal scrubber or steel wool to clean off the rest, as that can scratch your appliance.

You can use any of the cleaning techniques we have listed above to clean the appliance before applying the coating. You want to ensure that the appliance is dry as well, though, and you can use any soft cloth or a microfiber cloth to do that. Once you have a clean, dry and rust-free appliance, then you can apply the protective coating. You simply need to spray evenly over the entire stainless-steel surface. Once you have done that, you will have an invisible coating that keeps out fingerprints, markings, rust and other unsightly additions to your appliance.

You can use something like Turtle Wax to protect your stainless steel surfaces as well. You may not want to use a spray for environmental reasons or some other reason. Turtle Wax and other protective waxes work very well at keeping your stainless-steel looking great, and they apply invisibly to the surface, giving you a clean, clear look that you will love.

If you want to do less cleaning with your stainless-steel appliances and spend less time looking at fingerprints, smudges and other marks, then you need to use some sort of protective coating. It doesn’t take a lot of coating to keep the steel surfaces protected. These are not expensive items either, and they will protect your stainless steel and prolong its lifespan, so they are worth the little bit of time and money that they require.

You may have suggestions of your own for keeping stainless steel looking its best. Be sure to share them with us so that we can pass them on. Hopefully, our tips and guidelines have helped you as you try to keep a clean, beautiful-looking kitchen. You don’t have to settle for smudged surfaces anymore. If you follow the methods we have laid out here, you will have stainless steel appliances that look every bit as beautiful as when you first bought them.