Wood furniture can look dated with everyday wear and tear. One TikToker is showing the internet how she cares for her wooden coffee table without turning to toxic wood polish.
The scoop
Jennifer (@mrsshoemaker) posted a video on her page explaining how to make a two-ingredient wood polish.
She combines two parts oil to one part lemon juice, which is about half a cup of oil mixed with the juice from half a lemon. "I do think it's better just to make a small batch at a time," she explains.
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Jennifer notes that she uses olive oil for her recipe, but coconut oil can work too. Once the mixture is sufficiently shaken, she pours it on a clean rag and wipes it across her wooden coffee table. After waiting for five minutes, she buffs out the excess.
"It really brings out the shine while cleaning it," Jennifer says. The cleaning guru says she places the bottle in her fridge in between uses.
Although putting these cooking ingredients on your favorite wooden furniture pieces might seem strange, there is some clear science behind why Jennifer's hack works. The oil conditions and polishes the wood, while the lemon juice has natural stain-lifting compounds that can refurbish any dresser or butcher block in minutes.
However, avoid applying this homemade mixture to hardwood floors, since it can make the floors slippery if the oil doesn't absorb properly, and the acidity may destroy your floor's finish. The acidity could affect a number of other surfaces too, but it should be OK for wood tables, as the video shows.
How it's helping
Not only is this DIY cleaning product less expensive than most of the conventional cleaning products on the market, but everyone likely has oil and lemon juice in their cabinet — or can pick some up at the grocery store. It will also leave your house smelling floral and clean.
Conventional wood cleaning products are made from harsh chemicals that come with potentially negative health complications. The exact chemical makeup of the product will depend on which one you purchase, but common ingredients include ethanol, carnauba wax, turpentine, and mineral oil.
Furniture polishes and stains can lead to adverse health effects via noxious fume inhalation, accidental ingestion, or skin contact with the ingredients. In addition, the chemicals, if released into the environment, can cause acute aquatic toxicity and subsequently kill species like fish and plankton.
Not to mention those pesky bottles and aerosol cans just accumulate in landfills for thousands of years before breaking down.
What everyone's saying
While this one hasn't gone viral (yet), early watchers were impressed by the ease of this DIY cleaning solution and the results of a single application to Jennifer's table.
"Wow!" one user wrote, while another presented her with a series of clapping emojis.
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