When life gives you lemons, make household cleaning products. Okay, this might not be how the expression goes, but this is what we think you should do. Lemons aren't just great for ice water or baking, but they're also great for cleaning. Below you'll discover seven surprising ways that you can use lemons and lemon juice to make your life cleaner and easier.
1. Use Lemons to Get Your Whites Whiter
If you're looking for an all-natural alternative to bleach, you should use lemon juice. This will keep your clothes smelling nice and fresh, brighten your whites, and is safe to use with colors.
2. Freshen Your Hands
If you have been cutting something smelly, such as onions, the stench will linger on your hands for hours. To get rid of this odor, rub your hands with a slice of lemon.
3. Clean Your Cutting Board
The acidic nature of lemon makes it a fantastic disinfectant. Add some salt to lemon juice to make it abrasive, then use your DIY scrub to clean dirty surfaces - like your cutting board after chopping raw meat.
4. Keep Bugs Away
Bugs such as ants and flies hate the smell of citrus. Therefore, to keep them at bay, take some lemon scraps and tie them in a paper towel to form a bundle. Leave these bundles by the windows or doors, or anywhere bugs can enter.
5. Make Vinegar Bearable
Vinegar is great at cleaning, but it stinks. To get all the benefits of vinegar without the smell, marinate lemon slices in vinegar and store them for a few weeks. A lemon vinegar solution will be formed that smells good and cleans wonderfully.
6. Freshen Your Fridge
While most of us use some baking soda to keep the fridge fresh, some cotton balls that have been soaked in lemon juice are just as effective. Just make sure to swap the swabs every week or so.
7. Clean Your Coffee Machine
After some time, coffee machines get dirty with limescale which affects their performance as well as the taste of your coffee. To clean them out all-naturally, put a mixture of 1/3 lemon juice and 2/3 water through the coffee maker. Run a few pots before using again.
