Are You Cleaning Your Kitchen Cabinets Often Enough?

While having a clean and sparkling kitchen may be the dream, the cooking area rarely looks that way in real life. You might think regularly scrubbing the kitchen floor, island, and stovetop is enough to keep your home's kitchen space clean, but the accumulated grease, dust, food debris, and watermarks on your cabinets tell another story entirely. Though cleaning your kitchen cabinets daily isn't viable, you should clean their surface once every two weeks at minimum and the inside every three to five months.

Your kitchen cabinets and their hardware see a lot of action. The outside surfaces, for example, are constantly exposed to dust motes, and they're also the target of your cooking splatters and might be subjected to greasy or wet hands. Further, the inside of your cabinets is responsible for storing your food items, plates, glasses, and mugs. So keeping them spotless isn't just about having a pristine kitchen; cleaning your cabinets will contribute to your health and hygiene, too.

The frequency of cleaning your kitchen cabinets depends on how much dust, grease, and food splatters they encounter. If you observe a lot of buildup, you might not be cleaning them often enough. Another thing to remember is that the outside and inside of your cabinets don't require the same level of care. Due to being exposed to multiple elements, a cabinet's exterior will require more frequent cleaning than its interior. So make it a point to clean your cabinets' surface along with their knobs and handles once a week or at least every two weeks. Cooking splatters and/or spills should be addressed immediately.

That said, dust and grease can easily accumulate inside your cabinets, too, inviting insects like spiders to build their homes. So if you don't want to host any uninvited guests, have your food items and dishes infected, and your cabinet smelling rank, clean the insides of your kitchen cabinets every two to three months. However, if the dust buildup is minimal during that time, every three to five months is appropriate.

If you find you're not cleaning your kitchen cabinets often enough and are ready to employ a new cleaning schedule to keep them in better shape, note this will only yield satisfactory results if you clean them well — inside and out. As for cleaning the inside of your cabinets, remember to empty them out completely when performing a deep cleaning. This is the only way you can get to all the corners to remove crumbs, wipe away dust, and tackle anything else perhaps hidden by the items inside.

Once clean, though you might be tempted to put all the items immediately back onto their shelves, don't succumb to the temptation. Instead, leave your cabinet doors open for at least 30 minutes to even a few hours, to let everything — from the cabinet shelves to inside the cabinet doors — air dry.

As for the exterior of your kitchen cabinets, another mistake people can make is applying brute force or using coarse scrubbers to wipe the surface. Though it might help you eliminate dust, grease, stains, and watermarks, such an approach could also damage the finish and paint. Rather, opt for a microfiber cloth to wipe the cabinets down gently (similar to what you'd do for the inside). Additionally, use an antibacterial solution to clean the handles and knobs.