Best Eco-Friendly Stainless Steel Cleaner

We have all seen stainless steel appliances covered in smudges and fingerprints. There are many eco-friendly stainless steel cleaners on the market that can get rid of those smudges and grime. Many of these cleaners are natural, eco-friendly, plant-based cleaners, but all of the stainless steel cleaners do not do the same thing. It is important to know what you want from a cleaner to find the best eco-friendly stainless steel cleaner for you.

How to Clean Stainless Steel

Before we talk about cleaners, lets first touch on the basics of cleaning stainless steel. There are a couple of how-to tips to remember when cleaning stainless steel, but not a lot. The first step is to not use scouring powders, bleach, or ammonia, these can damage the finish. Next, using a non-abrasive cloth, apply, and wipe off the cleaner. Make sure that you wipe with the grain. Wiping against the grain does not cause damage, but wiping with the grain leads to fewer streaks and a better shine.

Best eco-friendly stainless steel cleaner

The next step is often left out, do a quick buff with a microfiber cloth. This will really cause stainless steel to shine. If you are using a product that leaves a protective coating, it will allow for even dispersal of the coating.

Types of Stainless Steel Cleaning Products

There are numerous types of stainless steel cleaning products that each do a different thing. It is important to make sure that you are using the right product for what you want done.

  • Cleaner: This is just what it sounds like, it cleans stainless steel. It removes grime, smudges, and grease. Some heavy-duty cleaners contain very small abrasives, but most do not. Fatty-alcohols are a preferred ingredient in cleaning metal.
  • Polish: A polish provides a protective coating to the stainless steel that allows it to shine. Many polishes are also designed to reduce smudging and fingerprints. Most are designed to be applied to clean stainless steel and do not clean the metal.
  • Cleaner + Polish: A combination of cleaning agents and polishing agents. The cleaning agents tend to be mild and the polishing attributes tend to be less than a straight polish.
  • Stain Removers: Stainless steel can stain. Stain removers are designed to be used as spot cleaning on discolored spots, not as a general cleaner. They often have specific cleaning instructions.
  • Rust Treatments: Stainless steel implies that it does not rust, but scratches and the edges can rust. These are spot treatments, like stain removers, that usually have specific cleaning instructions.

Best Eco-Friendly Stainless Steel Cleaning Product

One thing that I really noticed when examining the ingredients of eco-friendly stainless steel cleaning products is that frequently the ingredients do not match the claims of what the product does. It does not mean that they are bad products.

ECOS Stainless Steel Cleaner & Polish

ECOS Stainless Steel Cleaner & Polish

ECOS Stainless Steel Cleaner & Polish claims to clean and polish stainless steel surfaces without streaks. ECOS does a great job listing a full ingredient list but they do not mention which are synthetic and which are plant-derived. The Environmental Working Group gives ECOS Stainless Steel Cleaner & Polish a D rating.

Looking at the ingredient list it contains methyl soyate, a fatty alcohol, which is exactly what you want in a metal cleaner. It also contains, Laureth 9, which is a surfactant. I think that phenoxyethanol is used as an emulsifier and gives the product its milky color. One thing that is lacking in the ingredient list is a polishing agent. This is a great product to clean stainless steel, but it is not a strong polishing agent.

Even though I don’t think that ECOS Stainless Steel Cleaner & Polish is a great product to polish stainless steel, it is my #1 eco-friendly plant-based stainless steel cleaning product. It combines the same types of cleaning products, a surfactant and a fatty alcohol, that you want to see in a conventional stainless steel/metal cleaner.

Therapy Stainless Steel Cleaner + Polish 

Therapy Stainless Steel Cleaner + Polish is designed to clean smudges and fingerprints from stainless steel and leave a protective coating on the steel that resists fingerprints. The Environmental Working Group does not have a rating for this product. They advertise that they use a “blend of plant-based ingredients,” but do not expand upon that on their website. They do provide a full ingredient list. I think that based off of the ingredients, it would probably get a D from the Environmental Working Group.

This is advertised as a cleaner and polish. The ingredient list is filtered water, coconut oil, sorbitan monooleate, lavender vanilla essential oil blend, acrylates copolymer, and methylisothizolinone. Breaking down the ingredients, sorbitan monooleate and acrylates copolymer are emulsifiers that combine the water, coconut oil, and essential oils. Methylisothizolinone is a preservative. That leaves the water, coconut oil, and lavender vanilla essential oil blend. The combination of these products is a polish, but it does not have any cleaning ingredients. This product does not have any ingredients that will cut grease or are surfactants.

Therapy Stainless Steel Cleaner + Polish is one of the highest-rated eco-friendly stainless steel cleaners on Amazon with over 2,000 reviews. It truly does a great job polishing and there are many reviews claiming that it does a good job preventing fingerprints. Most of the bad reviews mention that it does not do a good job reducing streaks or cleaning. This makes sense based on the ingredients. If you are looking for stainless steel cleaner this is a great option. If you are looking for a stainless steel cleaner, not a polish, I would go in a different direction.

A very interesting thing with this product is that it has the exact same ingredient list as HAUS Naturals Stainless Steel Cleaner, they even both list “lavender vanilla essential oil blend” as an ingredient. Hey Mom Stainless Steel Cleaner only lists the active ingredients, but they are also the same, including “lavender vanilla essential oil blend.” My guess is that all three are made with the same formula and sold with different packaging by different companies. There are companies that you can buy stock or custom cleaning formulas from, that is what I think happened here. It is interesting to see some natural cleaning product review lists that list these products with different attributes and not comment that they are the same formula.

Better Life Natural Streak Free Stainless Steel Polish

Better Life Natural Streak Free Stainless Steel Polish

Better Life Natural Streak Free Stainless Steel Polish is actually a combination of cleaning agents and polishing components. Better Life does a great job listing the ingredients and they are all plant-based except for acrylates copolymer (emulsifier) and methylisothizolinone (preservative). The Environmental Working gives it a D rating.

Better Life Natural Streak Free Stainless Steel Polish list

Better Life Natural Streak Free Stainless Steel Polish touts itself as a polish and the milky white appears makes it look like a polish. It also behaves like a polish, needing the final buffing stage to get a streak-free result. Even though I just made it seem like only a polish, it contains decyl glucoside, a great plant-based cleaning agent. The addition of the cleaning agent, really makes this product a great cleaner and polish combination.

This product only has a moderate number of Amazon reviews, but they tend to be very good reviews. Many of the negative reviews mention streaking and if you do not use this product correctly, it will cause streaking. The number of positive reviews far outway the negative ones. This is a great combination stainless steel cleaner and polish.

Howard Products Stainless Steel Cleaner

Howard Products Stainless Steel Cleaner is another product that should really be labeled differently. They do a great job using plant-based products. The Environmental Working Group does not have a rating, but I anticipate that it would be the highest of any cleaner listed here.

I say that Howard Products Stainless Steel Cleaner should be listed as a polish because it does not have any dedicated cleaning agents in it. Technically water is a cleaning agent, but I am not counting that here. It contains soybean oil, coconut oil, and “vegetable derived emulsifier.” It has great Amazon reviews, but the negatives ones noted that if you didn’t buff it streaked and that it did not clean, but just covered the dirt. I think that both of these general complaints are valid. There are many reviews saying that it did a great job shining when applied properly.

innoshine b570

Innoshine B570 Stainless Steel Cleaner & Rust Remover

I am hesitant to list this product under our eco-friendly stainless steel cleaners. Innoshine B570 Stainless Steel Cleaner & Rust Remover does a great job of removing rust. There are very few natural and eco-friendly products that do a job removing rust. I think that this product is a little more environmentally friendly than most conventional cleaners, but is not as “natural” and “eco-friendly” as ones I normally review.

They claim they are “purely organic,” but the use of the term organic is not regulated in the cleaning products industry. This claim could mean anything. Many of the ingredients on the ingredient list are not plant-based and Innoshine does not mention “plant-based” in their advertising. They claim they are “environment and people friendly,” but do not attempt to back up those claims with evidence. They are also not listed by the Environmental Working Group.

This is a powerful, harsh, but effective rust remover. Looking at the ingredients, I think that it is better than many rust removers. Wow, I spent a couple of paragraphs putting disclaimers on why not to use this product. If you need a rust remover, this is the one I would get. It is expensive, but it does come in small bottles to use for spot cleaning.

Best Eco-Friendly Stainless Steel Cleaner Conclusion

There are several eco-friendly stainless steel cleaning products on the market. Not all of them actually do what they say that they do, but that does not make them bad products. It is also interesting to see several “high-end cleaners” look like they are all the same product, just marketed differently. Make sure that you check out our other cleaning product overviews and reviews.

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