We Tried The Citrus Hack That Claims To Make Rust Disappear, And Got Sparkling Results

Among all the edibles and drinkables that cross over into the category of "cleanser", lemon is probably the most pleasant-smelling. Its sweet scent doesn't diminish its ability to cut through grime. There are scores of lemon cleaning hacks for nearly every corner of your property, inside and out. There are also claims that this citrus product can tackle rust, either mixed with salt or straight up.

While all of the sources were pretty anecdotal, it was worth a try. I had a collection of rusty garden clippers that I'd been ignoring for years. I had metal trimmers showing three levels of rustiness: one slightly rusty, one very much so, and two sitting in the medium-rust category. In fact, I even found the rustiest among them buried on our land (Its moving parts had rusted to a standstill.) Our purchased and found tools needed attention, and both of these ingredients are always at hand in our home.

It took only a moment to round up the goods. Besides a bottle of lemon juice and a box of kosher salt, the only other things I needed were rubber gloves, a metal scrubbing pad, a few containers, and a crescent wrench and screwdriver to separate the clippers' blades. I cleared a spot on our outdoor table and got to work.

I used Safeway's Signature Select store brand kosher salt and a from-concentrate lemon juice. I also purchased a pack of Scotch Brite stainless steel scrubbers for stubborn rust removal cleaning. To make sure the juice reached all the tools' crevices, I removed the bolts with the crescent wrench to separate their blades. (The rustiest pair stayed together due to its complicated mechanism.) I gave them a preliminary rub down with a metal scrubber to clean away any dirt and large rust flakes while lamenting that I'd neglected garden tool maintenance for years.

Now onto the magic ingredients: Most of the sources I found mentioned mixing coarse salt and lemon juice into a paste and applying it to the rusty areas. Just because this is a natural remedy doesn't mean that it's gentle. Both lemon juice and salt can irritate skin, so I set aside a pair of gloves before giving this trick a try. Without measuring, I mixed up a consistency that would be thick enough to stay in place during the wait time. For the rustiest tools on the team, I filled a tall, narrow cup with only lemon juice for the blades to soak in.

With most of the tools separated into their parts, I divided them into their treatment categories. One source suggested letting the paste sit for at least 30 minutes, and another mentioned letting the tool soak in straight lemon juice for two hours. Since I had plenty of rusty equipment to experiment with, I settled on letting the paste do its work for both 30 and 60 minutes on three different tools: 30 minutes would do for two tools, one with light and the other with medium rust. Another medium-rusty tool would get a 60-minute session. And the extremely rusty clippers would get a straight lemon juice soak for two hours. I coated one side of each blade in a thick layer of the lemon juice and salt mixture. (I left the other side as-is, since the paste needed to sit on a flat surface.) I dunked the rustiest shears straight into the cup of lemon juice. I set three timers and waited for the ingredients to do their work.

Once the first two timers went off, I grabbed a rag to wipe away the dried salt from the blades. Lo and behold, beneath the salty crust were noticeably better-looking metal. Using salt when cleaning your home is great due to its scrubbing ability, so I took advantage of its grainy texture to scrub at the remaining rust. With a wipe to clear away the residue, the paste had definitely removed most of the rust from the tools.

The moment of truth was coming, as I pulled the rustiest shears from the cup of lemon juice. Yes, even those disastrous clippers looked considerably better. I gave them an extra rub down with the metal scrubber. There was enough rust remaining — I hadn't expected miracles — that I mixed up another batch of juice and salt paste for a reinforcement treatment. I let the shears marinate for 30 minutes; once I scrubbed and rinsed the salty mix away, there was a marked reduction in rust. Although the tools still had some remnants of rust, the results were promising enough for me to give it my stamp of approval.