For a brushed finish, this can typically be accomplished with simple household items like baking soda, flour, or vinegar. You can apply these products to any stainless steel piece to give it a quick yet effective polish, though it might take a little elbow grease to get the exact look you're going for.
Use dish soap and water.
One way to keep your brushed stainless steel sparkling is to wipe it down often with a little soap and water. In fact, if you wipe it down when you're cooking or doing dishes, it will help you maintain the surface.
Cleaning Brushed stainless steel should require very little maintenance, other than to gently clean with water and a mild liquid detergent to remove any dirt or splashes. A microfibre cloth or sponge should be used to wipe over the surfaces of the furniture.
Vinegar is safe to use on stainless steel and helps remove oil and grime. Fill a reusable spray bottle with a combination of 1:1 white vinegar and water. Spritz it on, and wipe it off — no need to rinse!
Brushed stainless steel is regular stainless steel that has been treated with an abrasive material to give it a unique texture or finish. This treatment can be done by hand or machine and results in a surface that looks like metal wool or sandpaper was used on it.
Stay away from steel wool and brushes. They will scratch the surface of your stainless steel and make it more susceptible to rusting and staining. Abrasive cleaners will scratch the surface and dull the finish. Bleach and cleaners with chlorine will stain and damage stainless steel.
Restoring your stainless steel finishes is easier than ever thanks to natural ingredients like vinegar and baking soda, as well as store-bought cleaners specially formulated for use on metal surfaces such as brass, copper, gold, etc.
Avoid using regular Windex on stainless steel, as the ammonia content can damage the material. Although it is possible to clean stainless steel with ammonia-free Windex, it is best not to take the chance because it is difficult to tell how a cleaner will react with stainless steel.
As consumers learned how to keep the surfaces of stainless steel appliances free of smudges and streaks by using the right cleaners and techniques, they discovered that stainless steel surfaces do get scratches over time from other metals hitting the surface, minerals in hard water, or over-abrasive cleaning.
Distilled white vinegar (in a spray bottle) Olive oil. Microfiber cloths that are gentle on stainless steel (never an abrasive like a Scotch-Brite pad)
Rinsing is not necessary! If you're simply using a vinegar and water solution to wipe and disinfect, you won't need to rinse. However, if there's also plenty of dirt and grime you're wiping away, you may also want to rinse with some extra water.
Cleaning the knives with vinegar can damage the finish on knives and leave the edge pitted, warns Jim Nanni, head of appliance testing for CR. Other common metals in the kitchen that you should keep away from vinegar include aluminum and copper.
Now, don't confuse distilled with basic white vinegar, which is stronger and has up to 25% acetic acid. That vinegar is sold exclusively for cleaning purposes and is not a good idea to ingest. However, beyond cooking, distilled white vinegar can be used for many of the same household chores.
Hydrogen oxide (separately, a great cleaning agent and antiseptic), if mixed with vinegar, creates peracetic acid, as vinegar contains acetic acid. This combination of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide is potentially toxic and corrosive, which can break down or damage the surface it is applied to.
Hydrogen Peroxide and Vinegar
“Combining these two creates peracetic acid or corrosive acid, an irritant that, in high concentrations, can harm the skin, eyes, throat, nose, and lungs,” says Bock.
Vinegar naturally disinfects while helping remove hard water stains from your stainless steel sink. Once your sink is clean and dry, you can easily add an extra shine. Apply a few drops of olive oil to a lint-free cloth to buff the sink and fixture until they sparkle.