Clean Your Oven Glass Door Naturally With Two Budget-Friendly Items

The glass on your oven door can be troublesome to clean, especially if it's caked with grease splatters or a layer of grime. Purchasing expensive oven glass cleaners or degreasing products is not always ideal, especially if you hope to keep the chemicals to a minimum in your home. That's why you can turn to a simple, budget-friendly solution: lime from your refrigerator and a microfiber cloth. Not only does it work well to get all of the grime off, but you'll also add a beautiful shine, revitalizing even an older oven door. You can use this method to clean both the inside and the outside of the glass oven door and apply the solution to the gasket around the window, the grooves in the oven door, and the metal surface itself.

Unlike traditional oven glass cleaners that may contain chemicals like potassium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide, lime is a simple, natural solution that can do a fantastic job without irritating your respiratory system or putting powerful chemicals on a surface that will help you prepare food for your family. And that microfiber cloth can be one that you've used for other cleaning projects in the past (as long as you've cleaned it), making this a budget-friendly option that's super easy to manage.

Limes (and lemons if you don't have limes around) are an excellent choice for cleaning the glass on your oven for several reasons. First, they are good at reducing the presence of bacteria and fungus that could be lurking on the glass, especially if the oven hasn't been used frequently. Because lime is acidic, it also has the ability to break down and eat away at the buildup of grease on the surface of the windows. It works much like a natural degreaser in its ability to loosen the bonds that debris has on the glass itself, making it possible for you to wipe it away.

Microfiber cloths are a simple solution for supporting the work of your lime cleaning solution because they are absorbent enough to soak up the liquid and hold onto the particles. They are strong enough, though, to allow you to scrub the surface if you need to do so. Once you wipe away the mess, you can use the microfiber cloth to create a streak-free shine. Coupled with the power of the limes, your cloth can help you remove particles from all edges of the oven door as well. You can then launder them and reuse them next time.

You can make your own lime cleaning solution rather simply. To do so, squeeze the juice of one or more limes into a strainer to remove all seeds and pulp. Add this to a clean spray bottle. For lightly dirty oven doors, you don't need more than water to get the results. Aim for about a cup of water for each lime you've added.

However, you can amp up this recipe with a few additional scrubbing agents. For example, you can use white vinegar in the same ratio as the water. This will have more impact on the grease-fighting the solution can do to clean the surface of the window. If you have really caked-on dirt, consider the addition of baking soda. Adding ½ a cup of baking soda to the lime and water mixture will add a secondary cleaning agent, and when coupled with the vinegar, it will create a bubbling process that will break down the buildup.

In all cases, apply the spray directly to the surface of the oven window and allow it to sit for a few minutes, giving the lime's acid the ability to break down the surface dirt. Then, use a clean microfiber cloth to wipe off the grime. Flip it over to a clean side to shine the surface.