Your car engine can leave droplets of oil on your driveway that are a nightmare to get rid of, but cleaning fans have hailed one kitchen staple that can do the job in an hour
Oil stains could be a thing of the past with this handy hack.
Noticing droplets of oil on your driveway after you’ve parked your car can easily be a cause for panic. Not only do you have to make sure that your car doesn’t have an oil leak, but you’ve now got to spend a fortune on specialist products to clean the stain out of your paving – or do you?
According to cleaning fans, there’s actually a much easier – and cheaper – way to banish oil stains from your driveway for good. All you need is one common household item – washing up liquid.
The hack was revealed on Facebook when one person took to a group called Cleaning Tips and Tricks and asked: “Anyone know any hacks to remove engine oil off driveway please?”
Within minutes, helpful cleaning enthusiasts told the person to try using washing up liquid to shift the stain, with some saying the cheap product could do the trick in as little as an hour. Many commenters specifically recommended Dawn soap, which is a US brand that can cost around £10 to have sent over to the UK via Amazon.
However, you can achieve the same results with UK brands of washing up liquid such as Fairy, which is much cheaper at just £1 from supermarkets such as Sainsbury’s. If you want to try using supermarket brands, you can find the product for as little as 55p in Asda.
Explaining in detail how to use washing up liquid to clean up oil stains, one commenter said: “Use Dawn dish-washing liquid and a scrub brush. Give the grease spots a good squirt of Dawn, and scrub it in a circular motion to get it down into the ridges of the surface.
“Then put more Dawn on it and let it sit for about an hour. Then scrub it again, and rinse it off with the garden hose. If the spot is still there, do it again. If it’s really stubborn, sprinkle baking soda onto the grease spot along with the Dawn and scrub some more. The grease will come off eventually.”
While another person added: “Dawn dish soap, hot water and elbow grease,” and a third also posted: “Dawn [dish soap], leave it, rinse off after one hour.” Someone else wrote: “I’ve heard Dawn dish soap and a scrub brush but I haven’t tried it.”
If washing up liquid isn’t up your street, other commenters also suggested trying products including WD40, washing detergent, and even cat litter, which one commenter said can help absorb the excess oil before you use cleaning products.
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