Foods that help you clean

… your house hold items and give them a new shine off

Banana peel for cleaning leather You can use the inside of the banana peel to clean leather. Just wipe the spot that needs to be cleaned and then rub the spot with a damp cloth. How it works The secret agent is potassium. The potassium in bananas is absorbed and slowly works to plump up the scratches. Potassium is often found in shoe polishes too, for the same reason. Tomato ketchup Used for cleaning brass, copper and silver. Apply on the article, leave it on for sometime to work and then wipe with a moist cloth. How it works The natural acid in the tomatoes reacts with the oxidising of the tarnished silver, brass or copper. Coffee Place dry ground coffee into small boxes/containers with holes in the lid. Place in the fridge. How it works Smelly substances floating around in the air attach themselves to the surface of coffee beans. In more technical terms, how it works is that the many tiny pores in a coffee bean create a large surface area, per unit mass. This gives, in chemical terms, plenty of area for the smell to adhere itself to and causes it to be cancelled out. Mayonnaise You can use a cloth with little mayo to wipe on the marks on wood that need to be removed. Leave the mayo on for sometime and wipe away with a clean cloth. How it works Mayo contains oils and proteins that react and cause the wood to swell, which tightens cracks in surface. Grapefruit Grapefruit works great to tackle limescale. Cut the fruit and sprinkle one half with salt. Scrub the area and rinse with water. How it works The salt acts like an exfoliator to remove the surface limescale, while the citric acid in grapefruit acts as the cleaning agent and breaks down the scale. Potatoes Cut the potato in half and dip the side without peel into baking soda. Firmly rub the potato, covered with baking soda on rusted areas. How it works The oxalic acid in the potato mixes with the baking soda to help to dissolve the rust.