Worlds best Furniture Polish:

• 1 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup white vinegar shake well before using.

Homemade Furniture Polish Recipe Discussion
Most of the old folk formulas for furniture polish ask for 1/4 cup of oil or so, plus a few drops of vinegar. I feel those folk formulas leave the furniture too oily, and in hot weather there is a risk of the oil going rancid.

Recipe Variations

Instead, I've found that reversing those ratios -- using 1/4 cup vinegar plus a few drops of oil -- makes for a much better wood cleaner and polish. The vinegar pulls the dirt out of the wood, and the few drops of oil lubricates the wood so that it doesn't dry out.

OILS

The best oils to use are those that have the longest shelf life (one year). Olive oil works well. The best choice of all is the liquid wax jojoba, because it never goes ranced. It is found in most health food stores.

Boiled linseed oils found in hardware stores have synthetic drying chemicals in them and shouldn't be used.

I do love the smell of linseed oil in a furniture polish -- it is rich and nutty -- but I only use that which is food grade.

VINEGAR OR LEMON JUICE

You can substitute lemon juice for the vinegar. Organic apple cider vinegar is the best choice of vinegar, although I don't usually recommend this for general cleaning because of the possibility of staining. If you are cleaning something that could possibly stain, use white distilled vinegar.

Homemade Furniture Polish Cloth

Dip a soft recycled cloth, such as one of flannel, in the vinegar and oil mixture, and wipe furniture.

Lemon Oil Duster
Most commercial lemon oil is not all natural, but may contain petroleum distillates. Contact herbalists for pure sources of lemon oil. Traditionally, lemon oil has been used for furniture because it is so lubricating and antiseptic.

10 drops lemon oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
A few drops olive oil or jojoba

Dip a soft recycled cloth, such as one of flannel, in the lemon oil mixture, and wipe furniture.

There is a book about dusting with old pantyhose.

Oven MITT

Oven mitts are great for dusting and polishing around your house. I love the thick terry cloth square shaped ones. You can use one side of the mitt to apply wax or polish to your furniture, and the other side to buff it up. It's a great way to use old mitts or all those extra ones you've collected. And you can hang the cloth right over the polish.

Fabric Softener sheets. new and used.

Because television and PC screens are electrically charged, they actually attract dust, making dusting them a never-ending chore, but not if you dust them with used dryer softener sheets. These sheets are designed to reduce static cling, so they remove the dust, and keep it from resettling for several days or more.

We reuse old fabric sheets to wipe and toss the tops of picture frames.

Be sure to rinse the fabric softer sheet residue OFF the dryer screen with soap and water every three months. It builds up and air may not pass freely. Water should be able to run through. I cut my sheets in half, to make the buildup less.\

PILLOWCASE

Dust bunnies on your ceiling fan? Grab an old pillowcase and place it over one of the ceiling fan blades. Slowly pull off the pillowcase. The blades get dusted and the dust bunnies stay in the pillowcase, instead of parachuting to the floor.

CLEAN WAX BUILD-UP

To clean furniture of wax and dirt build-up, wet a coarse, clean rag with mineral spirits and wipe across the surface. Turn the rag over to expose a clean side and wipe again. Continue this procedure until the rag no longer picks up dirt.

This technique works well with the large open surfaces, but it may not remove the dirt that collects in the grooves and crevices of carved areas. Clean these places with a cotton swab dipped in mineral spirits.