The Unexpected Product You Want To Use After Polishing Furniture

If you love wood furniture, then you know how quickly it can warm up cool paint colors or contemporary architecture. Of course, to keep it in top condition, you'll need to clean it periodically. After removing dust with microfiber, you can go over it with commercially prepared furniture polish, Murphy's Oil Soap, or a homemade recipe featuring oil and lemon, among other products to clean wood furniture. That being said, if you use any oil-based concoctions, you might be left with a slight film, which is normal. To get rid of it, all you need is one product you probably already keep stocked in the baking corner of your pantry: cornstarch.

If you happen to have a wooden staircase and banister, we strongly recommend using cornstarch after cleaning and polishing to prevent slips and falls. We love endorsing natural fixes to keep the chemicals inside your home to a minimum, and cornstarch is completely non-toxic.

To carry out this hack, you just need cornstarch and a clean microfiber cloth. After you've completely cleaned your wood furniture with an oil-based polish or mineral spirits, you can use your fingers to lightly sprinkle some cornstarch on the wood, then rub it with the cloth. This will both lift the oil and buff the wood to a shine. Repeat on each area of the furniture, banister, or stairs to ensure the oil is removed and you've restored the wood's luster.

Cornstarch is famous for and most often used for thickening sauces and gravies to give them body, and the juices of fruit pies to make them cut more easily. But when it was invented nearly 200 years ago, its first application was in the commercial laundering industry. So, to use it as an aid to household cleaning isn't as weird as it might initially seem. In fact, cornstarch is on our list of 12 best cleaning substitutes that still get the job done.