How to Clean Your Car With Home Ingredients
Many automobile enthusiasts may not want to take their car to the car wash due to price or inconvenience. Sometimes, we just can’t make it to the car wash when we really need to.
Other times, the products that we have at home are good enough for the job. If you are more interested in cleaning your car yourself, try using the following common household items.
Baking Soda: For Seat Belts
Mix a bit of water and baking soda together until it’s a paste, then dip a microfibre cloth into the mixture. When you have enough on your cloth, wrap it around the seat belt and start cleaning in an up-and-down motion that allows you to get into the grooves of the fabric.
Wipe off the access with water. Besides removing tough stains gently, you can use baking soda for deodorizing.
Shampoo and Conditioner: For Exterior Shine
Shampoo and conditioner won’t just make your hair look shiny; they can also give your car a waxy finish and a deep clean. Add two tablespoons of either shampoo or conditioner to a bucket of water so it’s diluted enough not to leave streaks.
Then, use a microfiber cloth dipped in the shampoo/conditioner mixture to wash your car’s exterior in a circular motion. Avoid windows.
Cornstarch: For Cleaning Windows
Before adding shine to your windows, you need to clean them. Add half a cup of cornstarch in four cups of water and inside a spray bottle. Mix it together and spray the solution directly onto your windows. Wipe the excess away with a dry cloth.
Cornstarch, just like baking soda, can be used to deodorize your car or remove stains. Just sprinkle it on the stain and leave it overnight.
White Vinegar: For Window Shine
Besides comparing car insurance rates in Australia to save money, car owners can also avoid wasting their cash by using home vinegar to shine their windows. Vinegar is one of the most versatile cleaning products on the planet, and it can be used for glass, fabric, and leather.
Mix three parts of water with one part vinegar for textiles and leather, but reverse the mixture for windows.
Rubbing Alcohol: For Stains
Rubbing alcohol is another versatile product, but you should only use it sparingly. To remove stains from upholstery, dip a dye-free cloth in rubbing alcohol (dye-free because the color will run) and dab the stain.
Don’t rub it lightly or aggressively or you risk running the upholstery. Let the alcohol sit for 10 minutes, then dab the area with water to remove the excess smell.
Cooking Spray Greases: For Setting Clean Wheels
After cleaning your wheels (hint: use a toothbrush for the grooves), use cooking spray to keep dust and dirt off of them for a longer period of time. Cooking spray can make it easier for you to clean your tires in the future.
Cooking spray has several other cleaning uses, but if you often find dirt, bugs, and grime on your bumper, you can use this spray to get them off.
Toothpaste: For Headlights
Toothpaste is a well-known DIY cleaning hack. After all, if it cleans your teeth, it’ll probably clean the rest of your house. Toothpaste is useful for making your headlights shine and your vinyl or leather upholstery cleaner, and you don’t even have to dilute it in water.
Simply put some toothpaste on a brush and clean in a circular motion. Wipe off the excess with a dry cloth.
Coconut Oil: For Leather Upholstery
Coconut oil is often used to make our hair and skin shinier. As a soluble fat, it’s capable of being a solid or a liquid with a slight change of temperature. You can use both forms to clean your leather upholstery, although solid coconut oil will be less messy.
Before rubbing your upholstery, wipe the leather completely clean and do a test patch to ensure it won’t wreck your car seats.
Olive Oil: For the Dashboard
After cleaning the surface of your dashboard, use a dribble of olive oil to make it shiny. Rub the oil into your dashboard by using a clean, microfibre cloth. Olive oil can be harsh on some surfaces, so do a test patch similar to how you would with coconut oil.
Otherwise, it could decolorize parts of your vehicle. Avoid putting olive oil on your upholstery or seat belts.
Brian Zeng
Founder of Ponbee.com: I like to write about self-improvement and achieving excellence, and believe that it is these qualities that ultimately make people successful in life.
