There is a jug of white vinegar under my sink that cost less than a coffee and has cleaned more of this house than any product I’ve ever paid real money for. Windows, coffee maker, the inside of the microwave, the crusty showerhead. It earns its place.
So I’ll be honest with you: for years I treated it as the answer to everything. Anything grimy got vinegar. And a few things in this house are permanently worse because of it.
Here are the six places I’ve learned to leave it alone.
1. Granite, Marble and Any Natural Stone
This is the expensive one, and it’s the one I learned by doing.
Vinegar is an acid. Granite, marble, travertine and limestone are all calcium-based, and acid eats them. Not dramatically — you won’t see a hole. What you get is etching: dull, cloudy patches where the shine used to be, usually right where you wiped hardest.
And it doesn’t polish out. Stone has to be professionally refinished to fix it.
Use warm water with a drop of mild dish soap on stone counters. That is genuinely all they need.
2. Cast Iron
