Oven cleaning is that dreaded task many love to delay, but the longer it is left, the tougher it gets to bring back that shine, especially when tackling the glass door.
Despite the plethora of chemical-laden oven cleaners out there, Joanne and Tracy from @additivefreelifestyle on Instagram are advocating against the use of toxic products.
They’ve wowed their followers with a simple lemon-based method they promise “you’ll be blown away” by, demonstrating in a video how to use lemons not just for the glass door but for the entire oven.
Their post reads: “For years I have used our soft cleaning scrub and although that’s great, it can be a pain to get out and leaves residue sometimes. I’ll never use it again now I know how to do this.
“And I’ll never use the toxic stuff from the shops, which I certainly did before I knew better.”
To “naturally” clean an oven, they suggest chopping up some lemons, tossing them into a baking dish with water, and letting them bake at 200C for half an hour.
This citrusy steam bath promises to act as a natural degreaser and soften up all that baked-on gunk.
Afterwards, switch off the oven and either keep the door shut to let it cool or open it up to speed up the process, including the lemons and water inside.
Next, give the oven’s interior a bit of a wipe-down with the leftover lemon water.
The influencers said: “With the stubborn areas and racks I rubbed over the cooked lemon and then it easily scrubbed off. You’ll be blown away.”
For those wanting to go the extra mile, the heated lemon concoction can also be used to cut through grease on the stovetop and microwave.
Taking to the comments section, followers shared their thoughts on this oven-cleaning hack. @katcanavan_wildflower said: “It worked really well for me.”
@trezakitiona added: “I did this after seeing it and it worked amazing.” @letthecreativityout wrote: “This is incredible. I have always been annoyed at using baking soda to clean the oven because it is so difficult to get out this solves that problem. Thank you so much.”
@kellibrunton said: “Blown away at how well this worked! I needed to use a scouring pad first, then microfibre for the final clean. I only had 25 minutes before the school run and managed to get the grime away. Thank you! I really didn’t want to use oven cleaner!”
