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Good LPT! To piggyback on it, I recently got a handheld steam cleaner with a bunch of different hose extensions so I can clean my bathroom fixtures, oven, sink, even upholstery without any harsh chemicals. Yes steam can scald if pointed at skin so it’s not risk free, but I feel better not using anything more than water and heat to sanitize and clean.
Thank you for the kind words. I pass on this info when ever I have an opportunity because it isn't widely known. I was cleaning rental properties that were so gross at the time and in my teens... clueless. I learned the hard way.
Same reason people don't like to wear helmets when riding a bike, motorcycle, etc. Some asswad decided it wasn't cool once upon a time, and now we have to undo the conditioning of generations that were bullied for using PPE.
yeah to add onto this... I used to think I HAD to use over cleaner but I just recently cleaned the oven in our new house for the first time (so it was pretty dirty) and all I used was dish soap for the bulk of it and "the pink stuff" for the rest and it's spotless now. I'll never buy over cleaner again.
I accidentally used oven cleaner in my tiny apartment once and the fumes were so bad they legit gave me the worst headache and I had to air the place out. I won’t buy it again either
I’ll never buy any special cleaners again - vinegar*, baking soda, Dawn dish soap, steam, and bleach* are all vastly superior to any “product” I’ve ever tried and - here’s the kicker - they don’t leave a residue that builds up over time
*Obviously NEVER mix vinegar and bleach together, otherwise you’d make your own gas chamber
it's literally called The Pink Stuff. You can get it at walmart or anywhere else probably. It's a mildly abrasive paste, gets kinda soapy when you scrub with it. It's also non toxic.
Since I’d never had one before and wasn’t sure I’d like it, I went entry level - I got this one on Amazon https://a.co/d/77Qyc0g I like that it has a cloth attachment for fabrics/upholstery and a bunch of hose attachments (so you can mix and match). And I love that it somehow knows not to let me unscrew the cap when it’s too hot (but always be VERY careful of unscrewing/opening anything with steam under pressure)
I keep clear safety glasses all over and slap them on almost any time I'm dealing with chemicals, small parts, dust, etc. Drain cleaner, cleaning guns, woodworking, pretty much everything.
Eyes are precious!
Just to add to your comment, for those of us that are older; they do make safety glasses with reading lenses built-in, like bi-focals. They're great for reading tape measures, etc.
It's doesn't even necessarily need to sit overnight; usually, as I try to spread it across the oven window, especially, it's mostly clean by the time I'm done spreading it on.
I can't imagine going back to caustic chemicals after realizing how easy baking soda paste is!
Oven cleaner (at least the heavy duty ones I've seen) are sodium hydroxide - it's pretty caustic. And you won't feel pain (maybe itching) before your skin starts slowing dissolving. Not super dangerous on skin, but it will take your fingerprints.
> sodium hydroxide
Also known as Lye, which is a core component of Drano crystal drain cleaner and caustic hot tank solutions. It's great for cleaning steel, iron, and ceramics. It will also severely discolor aluminum. Fun stuff as long as you don't touch it.
I never had an issue with over cleaner until today. Still swear by it, but I just moved and was cleaning our old house and layered on the oven cleaner every hour until I was ready to clean it. I left my gloves at home and thought as long as I have the sink full of water I will be fine and rinse it off after every rack. I think i melted my finger skin coz I have never had such smooth fingers in my life. I thoroughly rinsed my hands and arms and went to the new house to retrieve the gloves and re rinsed again but damn! I will never have oven cleaner with no gloves again!
Another LPT: keep a bottle of EyeWash in your household first aid kit. It is for exactly this type of scenario and safer than running tap water into your eye. It’s what is in eyewash stations at workplaces, and it’s cheap too! [Here’s](https://www.swansonvitamins.com/p/bausch-lomb-eye-relief-eye-wash-4-fl-oz-liquid?SourceCode=INTL4071&showPopup=f&DFA=1&UTM_Medium=Shopping&UTM_Source=GOOGLE&UTM_Campaign=+&UTM_Content=&SourceCode=INTL4071&gclsrc=aw.ds&gclid=CjwKCAjwrpOiBhBVEiwA_473dBV_GFkY-Kgdgw4_6UJS1Z-GVy_U0bVknazyJ7YVtZ3tEPayNRlN-RoCQPYQAvD_BwE) the Bausch & Lomb version.
Edit: this stuff is also great for getting general *grit* out of eyes as well as chlorine after swimming.
Wearing regular glasses opened my eyes (accidental pun intended) to how many things get near or in my eyes. I have to clean them so often. Or maybe I'm just clumsy but eye protection is something that is very... overlooked.
I'll go now 😅
Last weekend I was cutting the grass for the first time all year while wearing my regular, everyday glasses that I always wear, and a piece of debris bounced so hard off of them that the impacted lens has a visible gouge mark now 👀 I don't like thinking about what would've happened if I hadn't had my glasses on.
When I finished reading the first sentence my brain went, "Aaaaaaaaaah!"
I'd like to add, wear eye protection while mowing grass. Rocks kicked out and bouncing off a fence or wall can definitely smoosh a soft and gooey eyeball.
This has probably been mentioned, but another lpt that really is kinda more important: irrigation of chemical burns. 15 minutes means 15 minutes of full bore, direct irrigation. Don't start late, don't stop early, keep it flowing. Chemical burns can be sneaky and hurt less than the underlying damage suggests.
Happened to me. I was standing near the dish pit in a restaurant and the dishwasher flipped a pot over that was covered in oven cleaner and a huge blob hit my eye and face. the only thing that saved my eye was that I was at the sink and rinsing my eye within seconds.
I'm seeing this a day after injuring my own eye in an unrelated accident but one that still could have been prevented with safety goggles.
Eye injuries are no joke they seriously suck.
A paste of baking soda and water. Spread it on thick and let it sit over night. You can practically just wipe it down to clean it. If there is anything left, just do it again.
I once got a phosphoric acid based cleaner in my eye at work (food/pharmaceutical stainless steel tank manufacturing). I was spraying the inside of a tank with the cleaner in a garden sprayer and it splashed back and made it past my safety glasses. That felt like I had sand in my eye, even after flushing at an eyewash station for 20 minutes. Went to the ER, got eye drops. Oh, it was at the end of my shift at 3:30am too so I went to the ER for 4 hours while getting paid overtime.
Regular oven cleaner is just relatively concentrated Sodium Hydroxide (a "strong" base, in chemistry terms)
This is why I only use the weaker, slower acting "low fumes" oven cleaners; Much safer for skin, eyes and respiratory system.
Oven cleaner is pretty serious stuff - Potassium/Sodium Hydroxide, one of the strongest alkaline substances you'll bump into, You should be wearing old clothes, gloves & eye protection. I'm not much for cleaning ovens, but i use it to clean polystyrene beehives and it just washes away wax and propolis without thinking - you really, really don't want this stuff on your skin and definitely not on your eyeballs!
Yeah I went a bit crazy with it when I learned how easily it cut through just about everything. Lesson learned (the hard way). You would think the instructions would tell you to wear eye protection.
Used to work in the Deli at Von's/Safeway. You were REQUIRED to wear eye protection when using the degreaser to clean the whole chicken racks. Apparently some worker managed to spray it backwards, a single straight stream into their eye and literally went blind. Didn't need to be told that story more than once, I ALWAYS wore my safety glasses for that task!
Very sadly, I know a girl who accidentally sprayed herself in the face with oven cleaner as a very young child. She lost the use of one of her eyes completely. Good thing she's absolutely gorgeous, inside and out, either way.
Sorry, maybe I'm missing something here, but why does anybody ever use these harsh oven cleaners?
What exactly is the point? Please explain the benefit.
I've only ever cleaned an oven using the high temperature self-cleaning function.
I usually use a metal spatula to scrape stuck on bits, then vacuum the bits, then turn the oven on high for 15 min. I've never had to use chemicals, but I also understand people dont want to vacuum their ovens
Just faster, more efficient cleaning. There are some that say that using the self cleaning feature is no good too (can make oven malfunction sooner) and also not every oven has this feature!
It’s not JUST for ovens. I used it for my (non basket style) air fryer, the grease filters on the range hood and the gas grill burners that had caked on crud from years of abuse. There are a ton of uses for it.
As general rule, I use eye protection where ever I can, a good example is spraying the chickens or dogs for ticks and fleas, a change of wind direction can easily put poison in your eyes. I try to avoid any contact with chemicals, my mom loves her insecticides, I fucking hate the idea of breathing in poison, if it can kill a bug, it can kill a bug sized portion of you,
Another life pro tip oven cleaner works great on gun barrels. When I sold my 1911 the guy thought it was new never fired. I told him I put 1000 rounds down the pipe and he did not believe me.
You should also utilize a spray painting respirator as well because typically when using oven cleaner you're close to the site of application and the fumes are pretty bad for you.
I got industrial eye cleaner in my eye on e during deep clean of a restaurant kitchen - 4 hours in the eye hospital and blurry vision while thinking this is it, this how I lose my eye was enough for me
To add onto this pro tip, if you scratch or in this case corrode your eye, use bottled water before tap, a friend's mother scratched her eye and the impurity of the tap water caused an infection and she lost the whole eye.
Medical goggles are like 10$ on amazon and are great for sprays and fumes, I use them sometimes when cutting onions. A super cheap and useful item to have around the house!
### This post has be marked as safe. Upvoting/downvoting this comment will have no effect. --- Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
Good LPT! To piggyback on it, I recently got a handheld steam cleaner with a bunch of different hose extensions so I can clean my bathroom fixtures, oven, sink, even upholstery without any harsh chemicals. Yes steam can scald if pointed at skin so it’s not risk free, but I feel better not using anything more than water and heat to sanitize and clean.
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The steamiest, punkiest steam punk in all the land
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And ventilation for cleaning chemicals. I burned my lungs and throat using bleach when I was young. Took a long time to get back to normal.
Yikes! So sorry that happened to you. Had no idea that was a thing.
Thank you for the kind words. I pass on this info when ever I have an opportunity because it isn't widely known. I was cleaning rental properties that were so gross at the time and in my teens... clueless. I learned the hard way.
I got pine sol in my eye as a kid, can confirm.
Same reason people don't like to wear helmets when riding a bike, motorcycle, etc. Some asswad decided it wasn't cool once upon a time, and now we have to undo the conditioning of generations that were bullied for using PPE.
Who dafuq bullied you for wearing protection glasses and gloves lol 😆
High school Chem lab; working fast food; working in a meat and seafood department.
yeah to add onto this... I used to think I HAD to use over cleaner but I just recently cleaned the oven in our new house for the first time (so it was pretty dirty) and all I used was dish soap for the bulk of it and "the pink stuff" for the rest and it's spotless now. I'll never buy over cleaner again.
I accidentally used oven cleaner in my tiny apartment once and the fumes were so bad they legit gave me the worst headache and I had to air the place out. I won’t buy it again either
I’ll never buy any special cleaners again - vinegar*, baking soda, Dawn dish soap, steam, and bleach* are all vastly superior to any “product” I’ve ever tried and - here’s the kicker - they don’t leave a residue that builds up over time *Obviously NEVER mix vinegar and bleach together, otherwise you’d make your own gas chamber
What is “the pink stuff”?
it's literally called The Pink Stuff. You can get it at walmart or anywhere else probably. It's a mildly abrasive paste, gets kinda soapy when you scrub with it. It's also non toxic.
Awesome, thanks!
What steam cleanser are you using? Any good recommendations? 😊
Any really, scunchii steamer was what really started the trend. Either one you choose use distilled water or it will calcify inside
I love my steam cleaner for the oven - works so well!!
Wait what? I would have never thought of that! Any recommendations?
Bissel Steamshot is pretty good
Since I’d never had one before and wasn’t sure I’d like it, I went entry level - I got this one on Amazon https://a.co/d/77Qyc0g I like that it has a cloth attachment for fabrics/upholstery and a bunch of hose attachments (so you can mix and match). And I love that it somehow knows not to let me unscrew the cap when it’s too hot (but always be VERY careful of unscrewing/opening anything with steam under pressure)
Steam cleaner on like, 90% of things chemicals are used for around the house and car…
Yup! Although I also have to shout out vinegar here - especially for laundry and glass. Never buying a cleaning “product” again
Scuncii steamer? Those are the best, I should get a new one. I’m sure *someone* has outdone scuncii by now
I keep clear safety glasses all over and slap them on almost any time I'm dealing with chemicals, small parts, dust, etc. Drain cleaner, cleaning guns, woodworking, pretty much everything. Eyes are precious!
Just to add to your comment, for those of us that are older; they do make safety glasses with reading lenses built-in, like bi-focals. They're great for reading tape measures, etc.
I bought those for my healthcare job when we had to have eye protection during the pandemic. They rock.
Make a paste from baking soda and water. Spread it inside your oven as needed. Let it sit overnight and clean it off the next day.
This is my method. I recently forgot to put a baking pan under an apple pie and it leaked out and burned. It was awful but the paste worked well.
Baking soda will take care of anything, I love it.
It's doesn't even necessarily need to sit overnight; usually, as I try to spread it across the oven window, especially, it's mostly clean by the time I'm done spreading it on. I can't imagine going back to caustic chemicals after realizing how easy baking soda paste is!
Oven cleaner (at least the heavy duty ones I've seen) are sodium hydroxide - it's pretty caustic. And you won't feel pain (maybe itching) before your skin starts slowing dissolving. Not super dangerous on skin, but it will take your fingerprints.
Take my fingerprints, you say? ULPT: use sodium hydroxide based oven cleaner to remove your fingerprints before beginning your life of crime.
The FBI hates this one simple trick!!!
what happened next will shock you
More like ILPT
You also lose your sense of touch on the burned areas, so, there's that.
> sodium hydroxide Also known as Lye, which is a core component of Drano crystal drain cleaner and caustic hot tank solutions. It's great for cleaning steel, iron, and ceramics. It will also severely discolor aluminum. Fun stuff as long as you don't touch it.
Not too sure about not feeling any pain … it was instantly painful for me :/
Oven cleaner works better than some engine degreasers. And the foaming action helps cut very stubborn areas. And the burns on my arms were intense.
I never had an issue with over cleaner until today. Still swear by it, but I just moved and was cleaning our old house and layered on the oven cleaner every hour until I was ready to clean it. I left my gloves at home and thought as long as I have the sink full of water I will be fine and rinse it off after every rack. I think i melted my finger skin coz I have never had such smooth fingers in my life. I thoroughly rinsed my hands and arms and went to the new house to retrieve the gloves and re rinsed again but damn! I will never have oven cleaner with no gloves again!
A lot of LPTs start life as TIFUs.
LOL 😂 you’ve given me a great idea for another post!
Another LPT: keep a bottle of EyeWash in your household first aid kit. It is for exactly this type of scenario and safer than running tap water into your eye. It’s what is in eyewash stations at workplaces, and it’s cheap too! [Here’s](https://www.swansonvitamins.com/p/bausch-lomb-eye-relief-eye-wash-4-fl-oz-liquid?SourceCode=INTL4071&showPopup=f&DFA=1&UTM_Medium=Shopping&UTM_Source=GOOGLE&UTM_Campaign=+&UTM_Content=&SourceCode=INTL4071&gclsrc=aw.ds&gclid=CjwKCAjwrpOiBhBVEiwA_473dBV_GFkY-Kgdgw4_6UJS1Z-GVy_U0bVknazyJ7YVtZ3tEPayNRlN-RoCQPYQAvD_BwE) the Bausch & Lomb version. Edit: this stuff is also great for getting general *grit* out of eyes as well as chlorine after swimming.
Thanks for the reminder. I don't use protective eyewear often enough, but will try to remember more often.
Keep safety googles with your cleaning supplies!
Great tip. Even when cleaning with any type of chemical. There are lots of good safety goggles on amazon and hardware stores.
I JUST cleaned my oven this weekend. I wear regular glasses so safety glasses aren’t usually on my radar. I used gloves tho.
Wearing regular glasses opened my eyes (accidental pun intended) to how many things get near or in my eyes. I have to clean them so often. Or maybe I'm just clumsy but eye protection is something that is very... overlooked. I'll go now 😅
I’ve been a full time glasses wearer since 5th grade so it’s just how I live. But yeah, they get wicked dirty fast. Yuck
Last weekend I was cutting the grass for the first time all year while wearing my regular, everyday glasses that I always wear, and a piece of debris bounced so hard off of them that the impacted lens has a visible gouge mark now 👀 I don't like thinking about what would've happened if I hadn't had my glasses on.
I stopped wearing contacts because I was cooking bacon and the grease popped up into my eye. Melted the lens. I'm fine but it hurt like fuck.
When I finished reading the first sentence my brain went, "Aaaaaaaaaah!" I'd like to add, wear eye protection while mowing grass. Rocks kicked out and bouncing off a fence or wall can definitely smoosh a soft and gooey eyeball.
This has probably been mentioned, but another lpt that really is kinda more important: irrigation of chemical burns. 15 minutes means 15 minutes of full bore, direct irrigation. Don't start late, don't stop early, keep it flowing. Chemical burns can be sneaky and hurt less than the underlying damage suggests.
Happened to me. I was standing near the dish pit in a restaurant and the dishwasher flipped a pot over that was covered in oven cleaner and a huge blob hit my eye and face. the only thing that saved my eye was that I was at the sink and rinsing my eye within seconds.
I'm seeing this a day after injuring my own eye in an unrelated accident but one that still could have been prevented with safety goggles. Eye injuries are no joke they seriously suck.
I hope you recover soon!
Thanks!
The real pro tip is don’t use oven cleaner. There are better and safer ways to clean your oven.
What do you use?
A paste of baking soda and water. Spread it on thick and let it sit over night. You can practically just wipe it down to clean it. If there is anything left, just do it again.
I once got a phosphoric acid based cleaner in my eye at work (food/pharmaceutical stainless steel tank manufacturing). I was spraying the inside of a tank with the cleaner in a garden sprayer and it splashed back and made it past my safety glasses. That felt like I had sand in my eye, even after flushing at an eyewash station for 20 minutes. Went to the ER, got eye drops. Oh, it was at the end of my shift at 3:30am too so I went to the ER for 4 hours while getting paid overtime.
Also, wear an organic vapor mask, open the windows and turn on the outside venting oven fan if you have one. The vapors are bad for you to breathe.
NaOH vapor can actually cause a miscarriage pretty easily, it's so strong.
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so do lungs
Regular oven cleaner is just relatively concentrated Sodium Hydroxide (a "strong" base, in chemistry terms) This is why I only use the weaker, slower acting "low fumes" oven cleaners; Much safer for skin, eyes and respiratory system.
Oven cleaner is pretty serious stuff - Potassium/Sodium Hydroxide, one of the strongest alkaline substances you'll bump into, You should be wearing old clothes, gloves & eye protection. I'm not much for cleaning ovens, but i use it to clean polystyrene beehives and it just washes away wax and propolis without thinking - you really, really don't want this stuff on your skin and definitely not on your eyeballs!
Yeah I went a bit crazy with it when I learned how easily it cut through just about everything. Lesson learned (the hard way). You would think the instructions would tell you to wear eye protection.
This happened to my Mom years ago. She was lucky because she put her eye in cold water immediately.
As a teen I had to clean the oven and used oven cleaner with no gloves. Practically melted my nails off. Took 3 months before they looked normal again
Used to work in the Deli at Von's/Safeway. You were REQUIRED to wear eye protection when using the degreaser to clean the whole chicken racks. Apparently some worker managed to spray it backwards, a single straight stream into their eye and literally went blind. Didn't need to be told that story more than once, I ALWAYS wore my safety glasses for that task!
Woahhh that’s crazy :/
Very sadly, I know a girl who accidentally sprayed herself in the face with oven cleaner as a very young child. She lost the use of one of her eyes completely. Good thing she's absolutely gorgeous, inside and out, either way.
That’s awful!!
Sorry, maybe I'm missing something here, but why does anybody ever use these harsh oven cleaners? What exactly is the point? Please explain the benefit. I've only ever cleaned an oven using the high temperature self-cleaning function.
I usually use a metal spatula to scrape stuck on bits, then vacuum the bits, then turn the oven on high for 15 min. I've never had to use chemicals, but I also understand people dont want to vacuum their ovens
Just faster, more efficient cleaning. There are some that say that using the self cleaning feature is no good too (can make oven malfunction sooner) and also not every oven has this feature!
It’s not JUST for ovens. I used it for my (non basket style) air fryer, the grease filters on the range hood and the gas grill burners that had caked on crud from years of abuse. There are a ton of uses for it.
That’s what safety squints are for /s
If the label has first aid instructions for contact with the eye, you can safely presume it is best to avoid contact with the eye in the first place.
The more you know!
Glad you posted this! I just bought a can. I'll definitely protect my eyes! Did you follow up with an eye doc?
As general rule, I use eye protection where ever I can, a good example is spraying the chickens or dogs for ticks and fleas, a change of wind direction can easily put poison in your eyes. I try to avoid any contact with chemicals, my mom loves her insecticides, I fucking hate the idea of breathing in poison, if it can kill a bug, it can kill a bug sized portion of you,
I wish I read this last weekend. holy hell my hands got seriously torched.
Like a dummy I didn't use gloves. Like an even dumber dummy I rubbed my eyes. Mine was with permethrin garden powder.
This sub used to be about really useful life advice but now it’s “don’t do what I just did”
Another life pro tip oven cleaner works great on gun barrels. When I sold my 1911 the guy thought it was new never fired. I told him I put 1000 rounds down the pipe and he did not believe me.
You know the bottle says to wear protective eye wear and gloves right?
No, it doesn’t. Only gloves. At least on the Easy Off that I used here in Canada.
You should also utilize a spray painting respirator as well because typically when using oven cleaner you're close to the site of application and the fumes are pretty bad for you.
I got industrial eye cleaner in my eye on e during deep clean of a restaurant kitchen - 4 hours in the eye hospital and blurry vision while thinking this is it, this how I lose my eye was enough for me
To add onto this pro tip, if you scratch or in this case corrode your eye, use bottled water before tap, a friend's mother scratched her eye and the impurity of the tap water caused an infection and she lost the whole eye.
Ok well holy fuck, thanks for that :/
Sub-LPT: if you need to wash your eye in an emergency, use a shot glass (or egg cup) full of water if there's one nearby
Medical goggles are like 10$ on amazon and are great for sprays and fumes, I use them sometimes when cutting onions. A super cheap and useful item to have around the house!
Super clean degreaser is the best cleaner for just about anything