If you are an avid fan of eco-friendly cleaning products, you must have heard of the multiple applications of baking soda, white vinegar and lemon juice. They are irreplaceable when you have to lift the grease from the oven, eliminate bad smells or disinfect the kitchen sink. But have you ever heard of the cleaning properties of olive oil? It is not a coincidence that it is a main ingredient of some expensive beauty products. Many people use it for cooking, but they refrain themselves from using it for cleaning purposes as they regard it as a waste. It is true that the high quality olive oil is expensive, but the cleaning recipes discussed below require you to use no more than a few drops in order to get the great results you were unable to achieve with any commercial cleaning product.

• Let’s start with the most widespread cleaning procedure that includes olive oil. If you have a leather sofa, you are probably aware that you should definitely book professional sofa cleaning as this material requires special attention. However, if you take good care of the furniture, you will not need to arrange professionals more often than once per year. It goes without saying that maintaining the shiny, glossy look of the leather is really important and olive oil can be your irreplaceable assistant. Get a soft cloth and apply a few drops of olive oil. Then, treat the scratches on the leather sofa and enjoy the great difference before and after the treatment.
• You don’t need to buy those expensive polishing products when you can just buy a bottle of olive oil. In order to have the wooden surfaces ideally polished, you need just a clean, microfiber cloth and several drops of olive oil. Rest assured your furniture will look glossier than ever. If you wish, you can make the wood polishing product even more powerful. Make a mixture of one cup olive oil and half a cup lemon juice. Rub the solution onto the wooden surfaces in order to remove scratches. If you have made an excessive quantity of the solution, don’t throw it out. It is good for use at least one more week. Alternatively, you can fix a squeaky door with it.
• Olive oil is the perfect polishing product for silverware and stainless steel surfaces. If you want to restore the shine of the faucets, go ahead and put a few drops of olive oil onto a soft cloth. In order to reach the inaccessible areas, soak a cotton Q-tip in olive oil. Then, get a clean cloth and rub the surface in order to remove the excessive quantity of the solution and achieve the desired shine. In addition, you will prevent tarnish and corrosion.
• Olive oil can also help you remove labels and stickers from different surfaces. If your kid has put a sticker of their favourite cartoon on the fridge door, you just have to soak the sticker in olive oil and gently remove it after a few minutes.
• If you see a chewing gum stuck on the carpet, call the professionals in carpet cleaning just in case this method doesn`t work! You can either put an ice cube onto it or use a few drops of olive oil and then carefully scrape with a blunt knife. However, you should be really careful as to how much olive oil you use or you might end up with a stubborn stain that requires you to commit some more time to clean the carpet. When the gum comes off, treat the area with turpentine and rinse thoroughly.
• Along with ink, candle wax stains are considered the most difficult to remove. Anyway, you can easily prevent them from forming. For the purpose, you need to place several drops of olive oil on the candle holder and you will not have to waste your time on dealing with wax after that.
• Strange as it may seem, olive oil can help you clean your pans. No matter how hard you scrub, there is always an oily film that is hard to wash out. Make a mixture of salt and a few drops of olive oil and scrub your iron pans. Rinse thoroughly with hot water and they are ready to use again.
• Right after the finish of your painting project you see a paint stain on your skin? Take a cotton ball or a soft cloth, apply some olive oil and scrub. The paint should be gone in a few minutes.

These were some of the most popular alternative uses of olive oil you might not have heard about. Olive oil is not only a healthy substitution of some other cooking oils, but it is also an effective cleaning solution that can help you keep the household neat and clean with minimum efforts and expenses.