After seeing how a woman used a dishwasher tablet to clean her oven door I thought I'd better share my ecofriendly, chemical free hack that works great, without harming your skin or the environment.
The story I read yesterday can be found here and I was slightly horrified she used her bare hands to do it! Those Finish dishwasher tablets are full of things you don't want on your skin - hello dermatitis!
Not to mention they have lots of extra chemicals that make me not use them in my own dishwasher let alone the oven. I shared the article on Facebook and one of my friends wanted to try it - I felt responsible for saving her and everyone else from the whole idea!
Out of interest, I thought I'd try using my eco-friendly dish washing powder on to see if it did work. I sprinkled a bit on......
Scrubbed a LOT and it didn't turn out great, in fact it still looked like it hadn't really been cleaned. As you can see, still plenty of brown marks. Also, rinsing the powder off the scrubber took ages and I somehow managed to get some of the powder stuck in the joins of the oven.
So after this superficial clean, I went back to my old tried and tested method....
A homemade Sugar Scrub!
It's really for using on your body but I have a few uses for it including removing stubborn labels off glass jars (if you've ever had a Beerenberg jar you'll know how annoying it can be).
That is what led me to first trying the sugar scrub on the oven door - I figured if it was glass so it might actually work.
Anyway, applying a few teaspoons of this peppermint sugar scrub and giving it a once over with my coconut scrubby got the glass clean relatively quickly.
The scrub is oil based, which sounds counterintuitive for cleaning but it helps to create an abrasive paste.
Afterwards, I went over it with a sponge a little dish washing liquid (not dishwasher liquid) and dried it with a teatowel.
Here's how it came up
Pretty sparkly and no chemical smells or residues to worry about getting into our food or air.
I didn't do a perfect job and to tell you the truth, I only did half the door so I could take a photo. It's far too hot to be scrubbing ovens this week and given it's completely kid safe, I might try and convince my 7 year old to have a go.
Here's a recipe for a Lemon version of the Sugar Scrub I used on the oven.
I have and do use vinegar and bicarb inside the oven BUT I infuse the vinegar with citrus which helps to break down grease and is a potent green cleaning staple.
For abrasion, salt or sugar work great. I used to use steel wool but I find these biodegradable coconut scrubbies work really well on most things and are not as rough, so wont scratch the glass.
I'd love to hear if you give this a try and what you thought compared to caustic cleaners.