Tips for Keeping White Cabinets Clean

Our new house has white cabinets and, my goodness, it’s tricky to keep them looking clean! I tried out Mohawk’s Cabinet Care Kit as a deep cleaner and polisher, and today I’m here to share the details on how it worked! This post is sponsored by Mohawk Consumer Products and contains affiliate links.

One of the things I love about our new kitchen is the abundance of storage. There’s cabinetry galore (I’m not used to that!), more space than I can ever imagine needing, and it’s all brand new so it’s nice and shiny.

One thing I don’t love about our new kitchen? The fact that all of the cabinets are constantly (constantly!) dirty.

This is my first experience with all-white cabinets and, while I really think they’re beautiful, my goodness they’re hard to keep clean! They’re always covered in sticky fingerprints, dirt, or yogurt and I feel like I spend half my life wiping them down.

I wanted to find a solution for a regular deep clean that would help them stay looking great over time, so when I was browsing Mohawk’s website and saw their Cabinet Care Kit I figured I had to give it a shot.

This kit isn’t necessarily meant for regular day-to-day cleaning. For that, I find that baby wipes or Clorox wipes are my best go-to solution. But I think this will be the perfect solution to use a few times a year to get things looking super clean and fresh again.

It’s incredibly simple to use the Cabinet Care Kit, so today I wanted to walk you through the process and share some things I learned about how to clean white cabinets.

How to deep clean white cabinets {Tips & tricks}

First off, I created this little video to show you what the process actually looks like. It took me less than an hour to get my entire kitchen done, but I imagine it would take a little longer if your cabinets were older and needed a little more scrubbing.

If you’re not able to watch the video, I’ll walk you through the process in detail below, as well!

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Using mohawk’s cabinet care kit

You can purchase Mohawk’s Cabinet Care Kit right here!

• Start by mixing the cleaning solution – it should be one part cleaning solution to one part warm water. They recommend starting with a full gallon of water (which uses about half of the cleaning solution) but I found I only needed about a quarter of that for my kitchen. Your mileage may vary, but I’d suggest starting with a small amount and mixing more if you need it, so you don’t waste any!
• Grab one of the provided cleaning cloths, soak it in the cleaning solution, wring out the excess, and go to town! It’s a really gentle cleaning solution that doesn’t leave any streaks behind – which I loved. I found that I barely had to scrub at all, and most fingerprints came right up when I passed over them with the cloth.
• Be sure to look at your cabinets from a few different angles to be sure you didn’t miss anything – I often had to go back to certain cabinet doors that looked clean until I saw them in a different light!
• Once you’ve cleaned the cabinets fully and they’ve had some time to dry, you’re ready to polish them! There’s a polishing cloth included in the kit – simply pour some polish on it and rub the cloth together to spread it around. You want the cloth to be pretty saturated but not dripping. Rub the polish onto your cabinets, then go behind it with a clean and dry cloth to wipe off any excess. The polish will help protect from fingerprints and smudges and keep things looking clean for a bit longer than normal.
• That’s it! You’re done! Bask in the glow of freshly deep-cleaned cabinets!

is this only for painted cabinets?

NO! Mohawk’s Cabinet Care Kit is great for stained or painted cabinetry or furniture. Just be sure the finish isn’t cracking before us – it needs to be in good condition. It also should not be used on oiled wood or unfinished wood – this is meant for something that has been sealed with a lacquer, varnish, or poly!

Does it leave my cabinets or furniture shiny?

No. This does not add any additional sheen to your cabinets and when you’re done they should have the same general appearance that they did before (just a lot cleaner).

will it yellow my white cabinets?

One thing I heard about some cabinet polishes is that they can turn white cabinets yellow over time. This product should not do that. I used the polish on my cabinets about a week ago and everything is still looking great – but you know I’ll come back and update you if that changes down the line!

Other cabinet cleaning tips

Here are a few other things I’ve learned about keeping white cabinets looking nice and clean:

• Wipe down the high-traffic areas nightly. It isn’t necessarily feasible to wipe down all of your cabinetry every single night, but a little effort goes a long way here. I try to grab a baby wipe (or a Clorox wipe) and go over the obviously dirty areas every night when I’m cleaning my kitchen. Just like with any cleaning job, the less you can allow things to build up, the better.
• Be sure to use your vent hood! The area above your stove will get gross and greasy. It’s almost impossible to avoid. But the more consistent you are about using your vent hood when cooking, the less you allow grease particles to float up and settle on your cabinets.
• Install hardware! Clearly we haven’t gotten around to this yet, but one of the main reasons our cabinets tend to get so gross so quickly is because we don’t have any hardware on them yet. We’ve been delaying it so far because we don’t know exactly what we want yet, but I need to make a decision sooner than later because I know it will make a big difference in keeping things a little bit cleaner.
• Find a routine and stick to it. Now that I’ve found this cabinet care kit, my goal is to tackle a big deep cleaning of my cabinets once a quarter. I’m hoping this helps them stay looking great for as long as possible! Whatever your routine is, the key is that you’re consistent with doing something on the regular so things don’t get out of hand.

I’d love to hear your cabinet cleaning tips! What are your favorite tips and tricks for keeping an all-white kitchen looking clean and fabulous?!

Want more kitchen cleaning tips? Here’s how to deep clean your kitchen!