How To Clean Your Oven Without Scrubbing

This is the story of how I managed to learn how to clean an oven without using chemicals, and hopefully this natural oven cleaner might help someone else in a similar pinch.

Why practise I love natural oven cleaner?

Well, I'm embarrassed to admit: I haven't cleaned my oven in six years. (Yes, that'south gross. I know.)

Call it a combination of procrastination and the stubborn refusal to employ chemic cleaners in my house (I do crazy stuff like use whipped coconut oil for lotion)–and, I'll admit, a dash of unadulterated laziness.

Non to mention I couldn't actually tell someone how to clean an oven if they asked me. So I put it off. And put it off. A

nd as fourth dimension went on, all that grease and grime kept building up until my oven was downright scary.

I mean, it's not similar I never tried to clean my oven. I really did–in one case or twice. I saw those nifty pictures on Pinterest that claimed vinegar and blistering soda could act together as a natural oven cleaner that would magically dissolve away oven grease, and thought, "Wow, that looks piece of cake!"

Didn't happen.

Then at that place I was with a filthy oven, a bad case of procrastination, and more than a little resentment toward Pinterest. But all was not lost. Hither'southward my natural oven cleaner recipe and tips.

Demand more DIY natural cleaning product ideas? Cheque out this listing of 31+ Natural Cleaning Recipes or my All-Natural Lemon Vinegar Cleaner Recipe.

How to Clean an Oven: To Scrub or Not to Scrub

When it came to doing the muddy work of cleaning my oven, at that place was i reality I didn't want to face: a lilliputian elbow grease was required.

I hate scrubbing (that's that nuance of laziness I was talking virtually). Some heavy duty chemical oven cleaners claim you can clean your oven without scrubbing, but I had two problems with that:

1) These chemicals don't always work. Reviewers seem to be split up on whether scrubbing was necessary.

Some people experienced that mysterious oven cleaning magic, but others definitely did not and had to resort to skillful old-fashioned physical labor to get their ovens clean.

two) Fifty-fifty if the chemicals do work, it's not worth the risk to me. I definitely don't want to fill my kitchen with fumes and chemicals, and then stick my caput in the oven and so I tin can breathe in a concentrated dose (at least not without a practiced gas mask!).

And if I probably take to scrub anyway, I might as well apply a truly natural oven cleaner rather than expose my family unit to a bunch of dangerous chemicals.

In the cease, I faced the fact that I hadn't cleaned my oven in 6 long years–some scrubbing would exist unavoidable. It was my penalty for serious oven neglect.

Luckily, it wasn't as difficult as I thought.

3 Keys to Cleaning Your Oven with Natural Oven Cleaner

Desire to acquire how to clean your oven with natural oven cleaner? In my niggling oven cleaning run a risk, I learned a few important keys for how to clean an oven (even an insanely dirty oven) in the easiest, least complicated way possible.

Here'due south what you need:

i. The Correct Prep

This is not a spray-and-wipe job. A trivial grooming is required, but it doesn't have to exist complicated.

Basically, you want to soak the grime into submission. An overnight soaking is probably your best bet–especially if you lot have years of broiled on grease in your oven (like me!).

But for some folks a couple of hours might exist enough to do the trick.

2. The Right Tools

I constitute that using the right tools can turn oven cleaning into a relatively easy job.

Here's what y'all demand to accept on paw:

Some stainless steel scouring pads for scrubbing (so you don't have to scrub and so hard).
If your oven is actually dirty, y'all might want to be armed with a small stainless steel scrubbing brush to really get into the cracks and crevices.
A good pair of cleaning gloves–y'all don't want oven grime in your fingernails, trust me.
A few microfiber washcloths to wipe up the grease. (You lot tin can use paper towels for easier disposal if y'all'd similar–I'm just not a big paper towel fan unless something is really gross.)

3. The Right Cleaner

Like I said, vinegar and baking soda didn't cutting it for my oven. But I wasn't ready to surrender on finding a natural oven cleaner that actually worked (and that was actually natural–a lot of the and then-called "light-green" and "natural" cleaners out at that place yet carry huge alert labels about non letting the stuff touch on your skin, which is not exactly my thought of natural!).

I was told this cleaner was totally capable of cleaning my oven with absolutely no chemicals. Supposedly information technology's some tough stuff. But I had my doubts.

However, since this cleaner doesn't come with a scary alarm characterization, I decided it was worth a shot. I allow it soak overnight to brand sure I had a head start on the grime.

My doubts started leaving my mind when I saw this:

Yep, that's six years worth of nasty oven grease literally melting into a pool of goo at the bottom of my oven.

Needless to say, I was more than than a little impressed.

Later some scrubbing (it really wasn't as bad as I imagined), my oven concluded upwards looking about new:

No, I am not going to make crazy claims and say my oven actually looks brand new–it doesn't.

I didn't clean it for 6 years and the darn thing did a lot of baking during that fourth dimension, and then it'due south not perfect. Merely I wasn't looking for a fairytale oven, just a clean one.

PS: Other cleaners might practise the chore, but I can't personally vouch for them. For me, this worked. If you want to try something else natural, I can simply recommend looking for a soap-based production that comes from a company that cares. Soap is the all-time to boxing grime and grease, and a company that cares — well, that one sort of explains itself.

Read below to meet exactly how you can clean your oven like I did.

Step by Step: How to Clean an Oven with Natural Oven Cleaner

1. Prep information technology. Remove any big baked on chunks of who-knows-what that might be hanging around the bottom of your oven. Then spray your oven with a 1:i or 1:two mixture of Thieves concentrated cleaner.

Give it a real good soak (I ended upwards using a whole 32-oz spray bottle of 1:one concentration to tackle the six-year-old grime in my oven–you'll probably be able to get away with a lot less!).

2. Soak it. Allow the cleaner sit for at to the lowest degree 2 hours. For actually filthy ovens (like mine) an overnight soak is going to assist a lot. I sprayed mine downward before bed and tackled the scrubbing office the adjacent morning.

iii. Go your tools. Have your gloves, scouring pads, cleaning brushes and washcloths ready to become.

4. Put on some tunes. Scrubbing is way more fun with music!

five. Get scrubbing. Time to go to work! Utilise your scouring pads to get the bulk of the grime, and your steel brush will accept intendance of the sneaky grease stuck in the crevices.

6. Wipe downwards as needed. All that melted goo makes it tough to see what'southward left to exist cleaned. Wipe off the backlog with a washcloth, rinse it out with warm water, and become back to scrubbing.

7. Intermission. Okay, you've been scrubbing for a little while and have got the main part done. But there's all the same some tough, baked-on spots.

Give your oven one more than spray down with your cleaner, and permit it sit for xv minutes while you lot enjoy a alpine glass of iced tea and check your electronic mail.

8. Final wipe-down. Scrub whatever remaining tough spots. Give your oven one last misting with cleaner and wipe it downwards with a clean washcloth. Everything should exist shiny clean!

Endeavour this Natural Oven Cleaner idea so tell me how it worked for you lot in the comments below! I look forward to hearing from you lot.

Want some Thieves cleaner?

Like I said, I use my Thieves cleaner for admittedly everything
— information technology's genuinely non-toxic, which means it tin can exist used in ways yous'd never think to use an all-purpose cleaner.

My favorite obviously being every bit a natural oven cleaner. 😉

Hither are a few other things I've tried:

I used it for clammy dusting, cleaning mirrors, and wiping down windows in a 1:30 dilution.
I cleaned my shower, bath and kitchen with a ane:five dilution.
I used a 1:three dilution to soak dishes with burnt-on food — totally melted the scorched food correct off my cookware. (Which, unfortunately, I take to do more than often than I'd like — definitely no Martha Stewart here!)
I used a ane:v dilution as a laundry stain remover.
I used a one:2 dilution for foaming hand lather (information technology smells wonderful!)