Kitchen cabinet surfaces and related hardware should always feel clean and smooth to the touch. Slide your hand across these surfaces. Feeling or viewing sticky, greasy residue or soil on the cabinet surface or the handles or knobs indicates that dirt and soil are currently present. When dirt and grime are seen or felt, old ways of kitchen cabinet cleaning won’t open new doors for a visible difference.

Cleaning Guidance and Essentials For Kitchen Cabinets:

• Gentle Degreaser—Ivory Dish Soap is a neutral/ gentle degreaser, as stated on the front of the bottle. Add a few drops to lukewarm water to create a safe cleaning solution. This water and soap mixture is excellent for wiping cabinet surfaces regularly. It will never disturb the paint or the manufacturer’s sealed finish.
• Cleaning is best done with white terry cloth towels so that you can view the removed soil and grease in real time. Use several white towels for this task. Submerge your towel into the mixture and ring it out to avoid using a dripping cloth. You do not want to overwet the surface or hardware.
• Start to clean from top to bottom.
• Change the water solution once the water becomes murky. Water changes are essential to avoid reapplying soil and grease onto newly cleaned surfaces.  
• Cleaning Intricate Design-Cuts: A soft toothbrush dipped into your cleaning mixture will do the trick here.
• Finishing: Using an ultra-plush microfiber towel, dip this cloth into the cool water and ring it out completely to wipe the newly cleaned cabinet surfaces, removing any remaining cleaning solution.
• Use a new dry microfiber towel to buff dry the cabinet surface completely.
• Double-check your work by rubbing your hands across the newly cleaned surfaces and associated knob hardware. 
• Using your hand, only the feeling of smooth, clean surfaces will affirm that this task has been completed for a visible difference.

Standing the Test of Time: Lestoil

Note: If the kitchen cabinets are heavily embedded with grease and soil, then it is time to break out the Heavy-duty Lestoil, a seventy-five-year-old cleaning product, to remove the layers of soil and grease. Follow the instructions on the bottle when formulating a cleaning solution.

Equally as Important: Never use oil-based polish on kitchen cabinets because these surfaces will become magnets for soil and dirt, thus requiring frequent cleaning.

The Ask Cindy mission is to inform and eliminate the feeling of frustration related to required house cleaning tasks. Thus, Ask Cindy, aka Cindy Inman, is going LIVE with a special co-host in 2024! There will be show and tell segments related to undesirable cleaning dilemmas with how-to-clean solutions. Intentionally, I will enlighten all who skipped House Cleaning 101 in school.

Please spread the word and share the once-a-month newsletter link below with your contacts. Thank you in advance for this consideration.

Still have questions? Contact Cindy here. Need supplies? Visit askcindyshop.com for all your general cleaning needs.

Furthermore, Ask Cindy is your knowledgeable friend in the cleaning industry; please don’t hesitate to contact me whenever you have any cleaning questions for your home or an Airbnb rental. Vacation rental clean-ups? Yes, this is another meaningful discussion, for sure.

Lastly, an earlier blog post shares additional cleaning practices/tips.

Thank you, as always, for staying connected. I remain grateful and excited to be of service.