I Cleaned My Kitchen with Lemon LaCroix and Here’s How It Went

Like many families I know, mine is addicted to LaCroix, or, as it’s called in my apartment, “bubbles water.” Lime, peach-pear, cran-raspberry, pamplemousse — we love them all! One time I posted an Instagram shot of the cases and cases of LaCroix stacked in the window of my local Key Food and the official LaCroix account actually liked my photo! I just about peed my pants, I was so excited. True story!

As you’ve probably read on this site, citric acid (otherwise known as the juice of citrus like lemon, lime, and grapefruit) has great cleaning power. It cuts through stains, fights bacteria, and smells great, too — that’s why we like to use it for an all-purpose cleaner. And club soda is also a handy stain-buster, best known for helping you feel better as you blot red wine off your blouse at a nice restaurant.

More on citric acid: What Makes Lemons Such Good Cleaners?

That said, let me bring you to my recent logical conclusion: Lemon LaCroix must have crazy cleaning power, right?

To test my hypothesis, I gathered my two trusty assistants (my daughters, ages 2 and 4), two cans of Lemon LaCroix, a plastic bowl, a scrubby brush, a couple microfiber cloths, and a sponge. We set out to test various dirty spots in the kitchen. Here’s how it went.

Because lemon can cut rust on knives, I thought the lemon bubbles water might be good for the rust spots on the 30-plus-year-old refrigerator in our rental. It used to be white, but some combination of age and abuse has given it a mix of actual rust spots where the finish has worn off and a watercolor-style wash of light orange rust all over. So we removed the alphabet magnets and got to work: We poured the LaCroix into the bowl, dipped our microfiber cloths into the bubbly water, and started scrubbing. No change. The girls used more and more bubbles water, with no more results. We had to shut that one down.

Next up: The grout between the tiles on the kitchen floor. This is a spot that’s notoriously dirty and a pain in the butt to clean. We mop the floor every week or two, but that’s about it. So needless to say, it’s black (although who knows what the original color was). The girls gamely dumped a bunch of LaCroix onto the floor and got to work with the scrub brush and microfiber cloths.

Miraculously, the grout changed color! With both the cleaning cloths and the scrubby brush, just a little agitation and some LaCroix dislodged a surprising amount of gunk. We were impressed! The girls were so excited, they started pouring more and more bubbles water onto the floor and fighting over the grout brush. We moved on.

While I was sitting on the floor, I noticed that the glass front of the oven was covered in greasy little fingerprints. I dipped my microfiber cloth into the LaCroix and gave it a scrub. Cleaned right off! I moved up toward the greasy knob area — that worked, too! Success! And I was pleased to see that it dried streak-free, too.

Last but not least, I gave the kitchen sink’s faucet and handles a swab with my LaCroix-dipped cloth — it cleaned those water stains right off and left the metal sparkling, Nice!

Now the kids had a hold of the remaining Lemon LaCroix can and were spraying it all over the kitchen like a couple of rap stars popping bottles on a yacht. I declared our experiment officially over and hustled my lemon-scented children to the tub.

I’ll admit that the experiments weren’t super-scientific. Probably most of that cleaning power came from the scrubbing, not the citric acid. Plus, Lemon LaCroix is too delicious to waste on cleaning. But — BUT! It did kind of work. So maybe next time you have that last saliva-filled swig in your can of Lemon LaCroix, pour it onto your sponge and wipe down the sink.

Will you try it?