Keep Your Painted Cabinets Scratch Free With HGTV's Shaving Cream Hack

Painting your cabinets is a great way to freshen up the look of your kitchen. This easy DIY project can create a look that is classical, austere, modern, or even maximalist, but painted kitchen cabinets are oftentimes more likely to show wear and tear like stains, fingerprints, and scratches. Small abrasions and imperfections like that can quickly ruin your whole aesthetic. So how do you keep your painted cabinets in tip-top shape? HGTV recommends cleaning them with shaving cream.

It sounds crazy, but shaving cream is actually very similar to moisturizing soaps in terms of ingredients, so it acts as a gentle cleanser. Because paint finishes are so delicate, harsh cleaning chemicals can potentially strip or permanently discolor them, and rough products like certain sponges could cause scratches. However, a traditional foam shaving cream diluted with water on a soft cloth will go a long way not only in removing unwanted smudges but in tackling the grease and grime that tends to accumulate on the cabinets around your cooking surfaces.

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To clean your painted kitchen cabinets with shaving cream, make sure you just use the foam version and not the gel or even the foaming gel because the added coloring could stain certain surfaces. Get a dry microfiber cleaning cloth and spray a dollop of shaving cream onto it rather than directly onto the wood. Then run some warm water over the cloth to slightly dilute the shaving cream.

Because microfiber cloths are non abrasive and the shaving cream is a gentle cleanser, you can scrub as hard as you need to in order to get rid of all the grime on your cabinets. If it's been a while since they've been thoroughly cleaned, the grease may be quite thick and caked on. As you continue to scrub away at the stains, you'll see them steadily start to lift off completely, leaving your cabinets looking like new. Whenever your cloth gets too dirty to continue, rinse it out and reapply your shaving foam and water, then go back to scrubbing. Before long, all your cabinets will be sparkling clean.