Recently I bought a slow cooker when my old one broke. I bought a cute black and stainless steel one that I thought would get a lot less dirty than my old white one. Unfortunately, I quickly noticed that it gets fingerprint smudges on it very easily. Since I tend to move around my crock pot all of the time it was constantly covered in fingerprints. I have heard people say the same thing over and over again about larger stainless steel appliances. Those beautiful fridges on the showroom floor don't look so great once you get home and you use them every day.
I was beginning to regret even buying a stainless steel crock pot and knew exactly how most people felt until I discovered this simple trick. Not only is it easy to clean your stainless steel appliances, but with a simple tip you can keep them smudge and fingerprint free.
This simple tip works great on all stainless steel appliances to clean them and to keep the fingerprints away for up to a month. You will want to start with clean stainless steel. I use my favorite lemon vinegar cleaner to clean off all the smudges and food. Just spray it down and wipe it off working in the direction that the grain of stainless steel goes. This will remove fingerprints, smudges, and food that is stuck on. If you have hard water stains on your fridge or dishwasher it works great to remove those too!
Once the stainless steel is all cleaned off then you can take a microfiber cloth and pour a small amount of olive oil on the cloth and wipe down the appliance. Again, make sure you are going with the grain not against it. Once you have finished wiping it down with the olive oil take a clean microfiber cloth and polish it to remove any excess olive oil. There is now a small amount of oil covering the stainless steel so the oils from your fingers don't really show that much.
With this simple tip, you can keep your appliances looking like new. The lemon vinegar cleaner will clean the stainless steel and the olive oil will help keep the fingerprints and smudges away. I recommend doing this every 3-4 week to really keep fingerprints off of the appliances. With just a few minutes of your time, your stainless steel appliances can be showroom shiny instead of covered with smudges.
Briana says
Will have to try this. Cleaning and reorganizing some in the kitchen today. Thanks!
Heather says
That is a great idea! I had essentially given up the thought of having a fingerprint-less crockpot 🙂
Janeen says
I rue the day that we decided purchasing all stainless steel appliances was a good idea. Of course, that was BEFORE having any kids 🙂 Great tip. I like to use Old English on my fridge, but olive oil is more frugal and works just as well, no doubt.