Shining Up the Stainless, Naturally

by April Anderson
Just Another Natural Nut
 
I am going to be honest with you, maintaining stainless appliances for aesthetic purposes is hard work.

As a business who uses only natural products, maintaining stainless appliances for aesthetic purposes when clients use or have used a conventional product to 'shine it up' is frustratingly time consuming.

Every time you use a conventional product dedicated to stainless, you are leaving a waxy residue that, overtime, builds-up.  For companies who create these products this is awesome as the longer you use their products the more you have to use each time and the more you have to buy.

I will let you in on a little secret....you don't need those expensive products to maintain the aesthetics of your stainless appliances (the above pic has only been cleaned and polished with Just Shine)  The trick is to make sure you are using a product that does not have wax or silicone as an ingredient (most conventional glass cleaners and some 'green' ones do).  Water alone can work as long as you don't have to deal with a lot of sticky smudges.

You can check out my video on how to make your stainless shine if you have never used a conventional stainless polishing product here  

How do you know if you have a build-up on your stainless appliances...do the water test.  Put tap water into a spray bottle, place the nozzle on spray, not stream and spray the front of your appliance.  If the water starts to run down towards the floor, you have a build-up.  If the water stays in one spot with no running vertically towards the floor you have no residue build-up (for this to work you have to spray on vertical surfaces)
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You will need

1. a clean damp cloth and clean soft cloth or 2
2. Just Shine, or water
3. arm power

If you have been using a conventional polisher for your stainless you need to add another step.  I use the Just Polish because the one of the ingredients work to remove all of the residue build-up over time but chances are, you have something in your home right now that will work with the product build-up already on there - olive oil.  Click here to see my video using olive oil to polish your stainless

You will need

1. a clean damp cloth for the olive oil only and a few clean soft cloths for the polishing
2. olive oil – it doesn't matter what brand and if you have olive oil that went bad and can't use for cooking, its still good for this.
3. arm power

How to use your olive oil

1. Remove all of the stuck-on food smudges with a little soapy water
2. Saturate your clean damp cloth with the Just Polish (shake well before each time you spray ) or your olive oil (be safe and pour over sink or a big bowl next to the fridge that you can dip in to  when you need more)
3. Re- saturate as needed doing only a section at a time so to not have the olive oil harden making it more difficult to polish
4. When it comes to polishing, don not freak out when you see the olive oil turn white, it's just working with what is already on there, when polished in the white goes away
5. Watch the video to better understand how to polish using this method