What NOT to Clean with Baking Soda

Posted on 15/02/2016

Can Baking Soda Clean Everything?

Baking soda is one of the ultimate home cleaning products. It is a product found in your kitchen cabinet, and a part of the “magnificent four” of house cleaners – baking soda, white vinegar, salt, and lemon juice. It is always recommended for a variety of cleaning jobs and many times you ignore this advice, going for the more modern cleaning methods that involve branded products. But people tend to neglect the fact that once upon a time those products didn’t exist and there was no house cleaning market, so people had to figure out their own ways of cleaning their homes. Most of the time that involved soap and, surprisingly, baking soda. That is why your grandparents will always suggest it as an option. After all, they have used it on every single surface they have owned.

But is it flawless? Can baking soda clean everything, and are there things stat baking soda cannot clean? This is a much bigger mystery than “can baking soda clean”. This question can plague your mind even long after browsing the web and checking multiple websites that Google redirects you to. And very soon you will arrive to a very simple conclusion.

Baking soda can be used on everything.
Baking soda is non-toxic, organic, not much of a disinfectant, but it is so harmless that people can actually clean their teeth with it, it is a great odour killer, it can be used in every room, on every surface, for any type of stain, it can be used for paint removal, for pest control, it can even extinguish small fires. Food stains, drink stains, they mean nothing for the baking soda’s direct assault, if it doesn’t completely clean something, then it will probably at least soften it up until the real deal cleaning products come to remove the stain. Baking soda’s ingredients are used in the making of mouthwash and deodorants, it stumbles fungal growth, and, of course, it is a leavening agent in baking. Is there really something it is not useful for?

Oh, right. Baking soda cannot, or rather should not, be used on polished wood, because it is abrasive and can scratch the surface, leaving marks behind. But it has a solution even for that. A three-parts baking soda one-part water paste can pretty much cover every single surface, and can be used even for the toughest of stains, like ones left by red wine, for instance.

And, it is sometimes taken as supplement by athletes for running events, and you can do that too, but you should be warned – it is slightly toxic if taken in huge amounts, and gastrointestinal irritation is a real risk. So if you are taking baking soda, do it in mild amounts, and rarely.

Ultimately, is baking soda not good for something? It is truly the ideal cleaning product that has no limits, and it can be used to take care of a variety of stain-related problems. Sure, it doesn’t have the fancy smell of brand products, and it may require some effort to use, especially when you need to clean it up after cleaning with it, but that is no price after it leaves your home clean, and can be always at hand, costing you only pennies to acquire.