Caring for
Steel
A five-step routine for the brushed stainless steel surfaces in your home.
Read this for best care routine. Repeat once a week.
The mistake almost everyone makes
Stainless steel wipes
Most are made to polish and shine, not to clean. They leave a thin film behind, which is exactly why streaks and fingerprints are still there five minutes after you have finished.
Use warm water and dish soap
Dish soap cuts through grease, splatter and finger oil and rinses away clean. No film, no residue, nothing left to catch the light.
Any clean one
The ordinary kind
Never a scouring pad
Yes, three. Page 5 explains
Always follow the grain
Brushed steel has a direction. Look closely and you will see fine parallel lines running across the surface. Every wipe, scrub and dry follows those lines. Go across them and you push grime into the grain and leave marks that will not come out.
CAN'T SEE THE GRAIN?
Hold the surface at an angle to a window or a lamp. The lines appear as soon as light rakes across them. On our tables the grain runs along the longest dimension of each top.
If you remember nothing else on this page: same direction, every time.
Mix, spray, scrub
Two cups of warm water and one tablespoon of dish soap into a spray bottle. Shake it gently. That is the whole recipe, and it works better than anything sold for the job.
Cover the whole area rather than one patch at a time. Give it thirty seconds to loosen grease and finger oil before you touch it.
Non-scratch sponge, light pressure, moving in the same direction as the lines in the steel. Let the soap do the work. Pressing harder does not clean better, it only marks the finish.
Do not stop here. The next page is where streaks are won or lost.
Three cloths, in this order
|
04 Cloth one dry |
Lift everything off Wipe away all the soap and the grime you have just loosened. This cloth does the heavy work and will look filthy. That is correct. |
|
05 Cloth two damp |
Rinse with clean water Wet it with plain water and go over the whole surface again. Any soap you leave behind dries into streaks, so do not skip this. |
|
06 Cloth three bone dry |
Dry along the grain Completely dry, following the grain. This is the step that decides whether the surface looks flawless or spotted with watermarks. |
Why three? One cloth carries soap back onto the surface with every pass. That is the streak.
Never, and always
NEVER- Bleach, chlorine or oven cleaner
- Steel wool or any abrasive pad
- Scrubbing across the grain
- Leaving soap or water to dry on the surface
- Polishing wipes that promise shine
Fingerprints and water rings will appear. They are not a fault.
Steel is a surface you live with. Most marks lift with a dry microfibre cloth worked along the grain. A few settle in and stay, gathering over the years into a patina no new piece has. That is one of the reasons we chose it.
How often
Dry cloth along the grain whenever you notice marks. The full five-step routine once a month, or after anything oily.
Something not lifting? Send us a photo.
info@aheeradecor.com