A woman has shared her simple hack for getting your oven door back to its sparkling best – and it’s so easy. Plus, you only need two items to get started
One of the biggest challenges in kitchen cleaning is tackling the oven, what with all the baked-on muck and tough-to-shift stains.
It’s a pesky chore, given how frequently we use our ovens. But now, one savvy lady has let us all in on her genius trick to get your oven door gleaming anew, and it’s unbelievably straightforward.
This hack is causing a stir online, primarily because it doesn’t cost a penny for pricey cleaners. Just two common household items are all you need, and chances are, you’ve already got them on hand.
TikTok sensation Nicole Paige Lilly (@nicolepaigelilly) took to the internet to show off her nifty tip, which involves nothing more than a washing-up sponge and a humble dishwasher tablet to leave her grubby oven door shining. In her tutorial, she first takes out the oven door glass with care before diving into the dirty work.
She snips a slot in the sponge to snugly hold the tablet, then gives the glass a good scrub. If any stubborn stains resist, she brings out a Brillo pad to finish the job. The cost? A dishwasher tablet sets you back roughly 4p, and a simple sponge about 5p—can’t get more economical than that!
And as Nicole mentions in her comments: “Should also note, make sure you wash everything down with water to remove any chemicals!” One impressed viewer quizzed Nicole on her oven-cleaning secrets, and she spilled the beans: “Removing top layer of dirt with kitchen paper. Left a dishwasher tab to soak then scrubbed with dishwasher tab in the sponge.”
This comes hot on the heels of another woman’s once-a-year oven cleaning revelation. TikTok user Mac, posting as @healthylittlepeach, has been showered with online acclaim for her homemade oven cleaner. In a video to her 354,000 followers, Mac confessed: “I’m not going to lie to you all. I’m definitely the type of girl who cleans her oven once a year but when I clean it I’ve got to clean it.”
She then shared her chemical-free concoction: half a cup of washing up liquid, one and a half cups of baking soda, and three quarters of a cup of white vinegar, which together create a powerful white paste.
Mac explained: “I remove the oven rack and add it to a hot tub of water. I soak that with some washing up liquid, some laundry detergent and some baking soda, then let it sit.”
While the racks are soaking, the paste can be slathered inside the oven and left for two hours. “Then I scrub the mess out of it, this is the hard part. You’ve got to scrub it. I have a little water bottle of spritz in case it gets crusty,” Mac added.
“I take a whole roll of paper towels and wipe it all down. I go to the bathtub and clean those racks, and add them back in.” To cap off the oven-cleaning routine, there’s a spritz down on the exterior with an antibacterial spray partnered with a trusty micro-fibre cloth.
