Goo Gone Is Your Key to a Clean (and Less Wasteful) Kitchen in 2020
Welcome to Coming Clean, a monthly column where writer Lauren Viera finds the best products for the toughest-to-clean parts of the kitchen. Along the way, she just might convince you (and herself) to actually enjoy this whole cleaning thing.
My parents always loved a good fixer-upper project, and when I was growing up, there was always a bottle of Goo Gone lying around somewhere. Invented in the ’80s, its black-and-yellow label practically shouts its effectiveness, and the liquid inside is a vibrant shade of orange that could pass as some kind of magic potion...or watery tree sap.
You probably already know about Goo Gone. Maybe you keep a bottle in your garage or your craft closet. But I'm here to tell you that Goo Gone is an extremely valuable tool for kitchen cleaning.
Almost all of my home entertaining and dining accessories are vintage, which means they require a bit of a cleaning ritual when I bring them back from the thrift or antique store. Glass items go into the sink for a bath in warm water and soap; wood items are wiped down with a damp cloth and polished with olive oil. Then, out comes the Goo Gone.
The citrus solvent works remarkably well to get rid of, well, “goo.” I’ve used it to carefully extract ancient tags from mid-century teak serving trays. When I’ve ordered new plates and had to peel off stickers from the bottoms of every. single. one., a dab of Goo Gone is all it takes to wipe them clean. And after hours of soapy soaking, it’s the only thing that works to rid old jars of those last sticky bits of glued-on label. (Please be sure to wash the Goo Gone off with soap and water every time, or run the item through the dishwasher if it’s not too delicate. While Goo Gone gets its remarkable power from highly concentrated citrus oil, there are some other ingredients in there that you want to avoid ingesting.)
This stuff has converted all of my old Bonne Maman jars into tea and snack containers, it’s transformed old sauce jars into flower vases, and has made more than a few second-hand serving pieces worthy of my Thanksgiving table. It's a cleaning solution that makes it easier to reuse glass packaging, turning it into chic containers for leftovers and cocktails alike—and that's perfect for any resolution to reduce waste in your kitchen this year. What can I say? Goo Gone, I love you.
Goo Gone Original Liquid
$9.00, Amazon
Originally Appeared on Epicurious
