All the Things You Can Do (and Clean!) with Lemons
You may or may not have noticed a lot of lemon-related stories on the site this spring. The thing about lemons is that they make for excellent cleaning tools. They’re loaded with citric acid, which can eliminate stains or combine with alkaline compounds to create a powerful chemical reaction.
Get a quick science lesson: What Makes Lemons Such Good Cleaners?
Whether it’s cleaning with them, buying lemon-scented products, or just eating them, we love us some lemons. Keep reading to check out some of the many ways you can use lemons at home.
Use Them to Make Cleaning Supplies
You could go to the store to buy cleaning supplies, or you could hit up your pantry and pull out a couple of lemons (plus a few other ingredients — white distilled vinegar and baking soda, for example) to make your own cleaning supplies from scratch. There are tons of things you can whip up, including an ant repeller, all-purpose cleaner, grout scrubber, and more.
Use Them to Clean Almost Anything
Don’t feel like mixing up your own cleaning solution? You can still use lemons to clean a bunch of things. Sometimes it’s as simple as cutting a lemon in half and scrubbing. Here are a few things that lemons can clean.
- Use This Trick to Eliminate Rusty Spots on Your Knives
- How To Clean Your Microwave Naturally with Just a Lemon
- You Have to Try This Ingenious Way of Cleaning Your Cheese Grater
- How To Clean a Wooden Cutting Board with Lemon and Salt
- How To Remove Stains from Butcher Block Countertops
- How To Clean and Polish Copper
- The Best Way to Clean Your Blender
Use Them to Keep Things Fresh
There’s a reason there are so many lemon-scented products on the market: the citrus just smells so fresh and clean! Here are some ways to use the real stuff to keep things (even flowers!) smelling fresh.
- 2 Simple Ways to Make Your Home Smell Amazing
- 6 Tips for Making Fresh Flowers Last Longer
4 Smart Tricks for Better-Smelling Garbage
- The Best Way to Get Garlic Smells Off Your Fingers
Use Lemon-Scented and Lemon-Flavored Things to Clean
Fun fact: You can use Lemonade Kool-Aid to clean your dishwasher. And lemon-flavored LaCroix to clean your kitchen. Surprising, right? Even this list of lemon-scented cleaning products we love might include a few you haven’t tried before.
Eat Them
Of course, you can also eat lemons — but you knew that already. Did you know that we have some very favorite lemon-flavored grocery store finds? Or that we’re obsessed with a gadget that makes it extra easy to spritz lettuce leaves with lemon juice?