This TikTok Oven Cleaning Hack Uses Three Simple Ingredients You Probably Have
Published Aug. 9 2021, 4:25 p.m. ET
Getting on your hands and knees to put some elbow grease into cleaning various nooks and crannies of your home can be a pain. Wide surface areas are usually easy, plus there's a sense of accomplishment you feel from getting a lot done in a relatively short amount of time.
But then going to the finer, tinier details can certainly feel like a big letdown. They also take a deceptively long time to complete, given the additional attention they require. Cleaning your oven is one of those more complex, annoying tasks.
No one wants to get a bunch of residual grease and crumbs all over their arms while they're hunkered inside a tiny metal cage trying to scrub the remnants of whatever monstrosities they've been cooking over the past couple of weeks, months, or even years.
But thankfully, this TikTok oven cleaning hack is supposed to work wonders, and tons of folks are swearing by it.
What is the TikTok oven cleaning hack?
If you've spent a considerable amount of time on TikTok, then you'll know that in addition to a bunch of faux-enthusiastic pretty people doing makeup tutorials and people in tie-dye sweatsuits performing mirthless dance routines, there are a lot of hacks shared on the platform.
Whether it's applying foundation in a new way or finding inventive techniques to cooking staple dishes, tons of people are broadening their horizons thanks to a bunch of posts they've come across on the popular application.
What makes this oven cleaning one so impressive is the fact that it really doesn't involve any special cleaners, astringents, materials, or detergents.
All you need are three things that you probably already have in your home:
- Baking soda
- Dishwasher soap
- White vinegar
Oh, you'll also need a rag or sponge to wipe it all away, so fine, four different items.
The hack was shared by user @gia_gabrielle who demonstrates how to go about orchestrating her oven-cleaning alchemy for maximum cleansing prowess.
"I'm going to show you guys how to get the inside of your oven spotless using three ingredients you most likely already have in your kitchen," she says in the viral clip. Then, she mixes equal parts baking soda, soap, and vinegar to form a bubbly paste.
"Wipe the entire inside of your oven with the paste. Let it sit two to three hours, wipe down with a Brillo pad, and it comes out spotless." OK, fine that's FIVE items you need for it. Gia shows off a squeaky clean oven in her video as a result of her hard work and ingenuity.
However there are a lot of people who aren't fans of the now-viral TikTok oven cleaning hack.
Multiple users complained that Gia's method requires more work than is necessary to clean an oven, and some said that the mixture led to a deluge of suds that took forever to get out. One user even claimed that they had to throw their oven out after it was ruined as a result of the hack.
Some commenters shared their own hacks as well, stating that they just put water in the oven's bottom tray and engage the self-clean mode, a setting many modern ovens have. The steam breaks down/cleans all of the particles and nasty bits in the oven that can then be easily wiped off.
Have you tried the brand spanking new TikTok oven hack? What did you think? Is it worth it? Or did you end up with a huge mess in your house, you know, the opposite of what you were trying to accomplish?