20 Things You Can Clean With a Lemon

Lemon juice is great for oily and acne-prone skin You can mix it with honey and yogurt for a moisturizing face mask or with sugar for a gentle, cleansing scrub. There are plenty of recipes online, too.

A lemon hair rinse will control oily hair and can help fight dandruff, according to Livestrong.com. After washing your hair, work a mixture of ¼ cup lemon juice and ¾ cup water into your scalp and hair, let it sit for 3 to 5 minutes and rinse. You can also leave the mixture in for longer to add natural highlights to blonde or brown hair.

Some coarse salt and half a lemon will clean a wooden cutting board, remove stains and, because of lemon’s antibacterial properties, it will also get rid of germs. The website The Kitchn.com has an easy-to-follow tutorial on how to do this.

The Kitchn.com

explains how to clean the microwave by putting a cut lemon in a bowl of water and nuking it for a few minutes. This will create steam that softens gunk, which you can then simply wipe off.

Quick and Dirty Tips

suggests putting a cup of lemon juice in a dishwasher-safe container, placing it on the bottom rack of the dishwasher and running the rinse cycle. Lemon fresh dishwasher!

An easy way to clean a blender is to fill it about halfway with warm water, add a drop of dishwashing liquid and turn it on for a few seconds. If you add a coarsely chopped lemon, it will cut through hard water stains and leave your blender sparkling.

When you have rusty spots on your cutlery, remove them by rubbing them off with a sponge soaked in lemon juice.

The grater is normally a pain to clean but rubbing it with lemon juice and coarse salt will get rid of those bits of food that just won’t come off any other way.

The bleaching properties of lemon juice will help remove stains from plastic food containers. They’ll smell fresh too.

To get rid of dark tea or coffee stains, squeeze some lemon juice onto the affected area and let it sit for a few minutes. Then rub the stains with a cloth soaked in lemon juice.

To get dull copperware shiny again, The Kitchn.com suggests that you rub the surface with half a lemon and some salt, but remember to remove the seeds from the lemon first so that they won’t scratch the surface.

You can also make a paste of lemon juice and salt, apply this to stubborn stains and let it sit for about half an hour before scrubbing.

Half a lemon and salt works well for cleaning discoloured brass too. However, you may want to test a small spot first, especially with valuable brass antiques.

Another way to use half a lemon and salt is for cleaning gunk off grills and grates.

Rubbing half a lemon with the cut side down onto chrome fixtures and sinks will get rid of stains and bacteria.

You can also rub half a lemon over hard water stains on your glass shower door to remove them. For stubborn stains, sprinkle a bit of borax onto the lemon first.

Pour half a cup of lemon juice into the toilet bowl and then scrub. Your toilet will smell fresh and the lemon juice’s antibacterial and bleaching properties will get rid of germs and stains. For stubborn stains, sprinkle borax into the bowl before adding the lemon juice.

To remove grout, put some lemon juice on an old toothbrush and scrub.

Quick and Dirty Tips has an easy recipe for making a glass cleaner. Simply mix three tablespoons of lemon juice with half a cup of rubbing alcohol, pour it into a spray bottle and fill it up with water.

Vinegar makes a great all-purpose cleaner but it leaves your home smelling like a fish-and-chips shop. The Kitchn.com has a recipe for an all-purpose cleaner that combines vinegar and the peels of citrus fruits like lemons for a fresher smell.

Bleach can brighten your whites but over time the fabric can become yellow. Real Simple suggests that you add a quarter to half a cup of lemon juice to your wash cycle instead. Letting the laundry dry in the sun will make this method more effective but test it on a small area first, especially with delicate fabrics.