One Hot Mess

Art provided by Lisa Orgler

Hands up if you clean your oven once a year?

Hands up if less often than that?

Ah, yes.  We love to use it, but we hate to clean it.  (Ok, I don't even like to use it, but I digress.)

I wonder if the reason you detest it so much is because of the symptoms described below.

Most oven cleaners contain lye, ethers, ethylene glycol, methylene chloride, and petroleum distillates.  These ingredients are known to:

• burn skin and eyes
• irritate the mucous membranes and upper airway (ie: nose and throat)
• be carcinogens

And if you are smirking because you use the self-clean option, you're not off the hook. Self-cleaning ovens contain Teflon, which is yet another toxin at high heat.  I bet you get the same symptoms when self-cleaning as described in the list above.  This is why you open windows and run for cover when using this fancy built-in option.

Before I tried it, I had no idea about the potency of the self-cleaning oven. I specifically bought the oven for this feature.  When I let it run for the first time, I spent half the day on my back porch because I couldn`t stand the fumes.

Luckily, before I ever had to use that feature again, I discovered Shaklee`s Scour Off - Heavy Duty Paste.  As soon as I screwed off the top, I knew I was in love.  This product is pink in color and smells like cherries... because it contains cherry pits in the ingredients (along with other plant-based surfactants like coconut and corn).

Clean credentials of Scour-Off:

• Non-toxic
• Natural abrasives
• No harsh chemicals
• Biodegradable surfactants
• No phosphates

Features:

• Natural ingredients remove the toughest dried-on splatters and spills, burned-on grease, baked-on food, and sticky messes without hazardous chemicals or toxic fumes
• Scour Off is made from natural mineral abrasives and biodegradable cleaning agents; it does not contain chlorine, bleach, or dye
• Scour Off gently removes stains other cleansers can't and is great for cleaning tubs, ovens, sinks, and tiles
• It will even remove rust, and is great for cleaning these surfaces: copper, grout, cement, ceramic, and imitation marble
• Wide-mouth jar makes it easy to use.

How well does it work?

See for yourself!  For this demonstration, I only cleaned the glass on the interior door of the oven.  Warning:  The following may contain images of graphic gunk.  Viewer discretion advised.

 This is the cooked-on grease on my oven glass door. 

 More grease.

 And in case you didn't get enough, I have another angle for you.

 What I did first is I sprayed on the Basic H2 degreaser formula, and I had it sit for a while.  The longer the better. (Note: My bottle may look different from yours as this is the older design.)

 Basic H2 sitting there, soaking.

And this is the amazing Scour-Off paste.  I probably should have taken a shot of the paste itself, but I didn't.

This is the dish sponge I used with the Scour-Off.  It has microfibre ridges, so it handles tough messes nicely.  Scour-off requires lots of water to work well, so spraying on the degreaser from time to time is a good trick!

 TADA!  The glass cleaned - naturally! 

(If you see any drips or streaks, it's actually on the interior part of the glass.  I haven't figured out how to get in there yet.  Have you?)

Close-up. 

The official before and after shots:

 Before

 

After  

(So clean you can see my reflection!  Hee hee!)

Tips and Tricks

I find the interior of the oven easier to clean than the glass, which is why I chose to demo the glass.  

• This tip is not obligatory, but works great.  Spray the Basic H2 Degreaser formula when the oven is still a little warm, so it gets the surfactants working right away.  Remember to allow to soak and then use the Scour-off.  What's great about using Shaklee products is that it doesn't matter if you mix them.  There is no harmful chemical reaction (something you do need to worry about with conventional products). 
• In general, Scour-Off requires a little of the product with lots of water.  (The product lasts forever - I'm only on my second tub in over 2 years and I use it daily in my sink.)  However, when it comes to oven cleaning, and in particular cleaning the glass door, I recommend using a little more of the Scour-Off with water.  It's a tough mess so don't expect it to just slide off!
• Use an abrasive sponge - but test in a small area on glass first.  I used the Super Microfibre Dish Sponge shown above, but in some spots, I needed to reach for the Miracle Scrubber Pad.
• Remember to rinse. I actually cheated and used the Basic H2 Windows/glass formula at the end - because, it is glass. No need to rinse after using windows/glass formula.
• Also, don't be like me!  Clean your oven often, for goodness sake!  The more often you clean, the easier it is for the cooked-on mess to come off.

If you have any questions about this product, please list them below.  I'll reply to each question!

Resources for you:

EWG Canaries  in the Kitchen (series of articles on Teflon dangers) 
Green Goes with Everything (affiliate book link containing tons of info about the truth in cleaning products)
Shaklee's Scour-Off Heavy Duty Paste in the shop
Scour-Off Product Brief (info sheet)
Shaklee's  Basic H2 (the concentrate that makes the degreaser and the windows/glass cleaner)
Shaklee's Microfibre Dish Sponge 
Shaklee's Miracle Scrubber Pad