25 Amazing Murphy’s Oil Soap Hacks You Need In Your Home

Being on the lookout for cheaper and more useful alternatives to the more expensive and conventional products, you may come across various cleaning agents that will surprise you.

Whether it is the fear of allergens, a soft spot for protecting the environment, or economic reasons, there is always a product that is so multifaceted, you only need one. One such product is Murphy’s oil soap.

Here are 25 uses for Murphy’s oil soap that may surprise you.

Murphy’s oil soap can be used as a one-and-done cleaner for your bathroom. This is for days when you don’t want the hassle of lugging various cleaners into the bathroom.

It’s a quick and easy hands-on solution. Mix it with water to create a cleaning solution for the entire area, then use it on the walls, floor, sinks, counters, toilets, and showers. Get an overall clean for an entire room and a tough one at that, in just 1 product.

Sometimes, we need a solution that has as many natural properties as possible. Murphy’s oil soap is that solution. It works great for lifting stains off clothing and not just making them the way bleach does.

Try the soap out on laundry items that have stubborn stains. Apply a bit of the solution at full strength to the area in question, then toss it into the washing machine.

This versatile cleaner is also great for cleaning leather. Use the oil soap like a leather conditioner on leather furniture or your vehicle’s dashboard area or upholstery (not cloth).

Use the product at full strength and apply it to a dry cloth. Rub it in ensuring not to get the leather too moist then use a second cloth to buff it. This makes the leather surface shine and has a fresh scent.

Murphy’s oil soap acts as a repellent to insects because of its chemical compound and scent.

Simply make a solution with 1 cup of rubbing alcohol, 1 cup of water, 1 tablespoon of Murphy’s oil soap, and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to make a natural form of insect repellent for landscaping and gardens.

Add this to the soil or spray it on the plants in your garden. This is safe for plants as it contains mostly natural ingredients.

Oil-based cleaners are great for plastic surfaces. Murphy Oil Soap is amazing for cleaning all the plastic surfaces in your home. It can be used to clean tour trash can, standing fan, or A/C unit.

Simply dab a small amount onto a dry cloth and work it over the surface. If you’re feeling the need to buff it, just use the reverse side of the cloth or a microfiber cloth to bring out the shine.

Another neat way to use Murphy Oil Soap is to use it to polish all the metal around the house, machine shop, dance studio, or pub/bar.

Dab a pea-sized amount onto a microfiber cloth and rub the metal surface in a circular motion. This is a quick one-step process that works well to clean up your sinks, faucets, metal bars, stool legs, or any piece of metal you can think of.

A large percentage of horse tacks such as bridle, harness, and lead is made of leather or metal or a combination of both. Keep Murphy’s oil soap handy to get these clean in a pinch.

For pieces that need to be washed, add half a cup of Murphy’s oil soap to a bucket of water and wash them, and let dry. For items that can be wiped down or buffed, get to buffing with a small amount of cloth and enjoy the shine.

Take Murphy’s oil soap to the car to clean the wheels and hub caps. This can be applied at full strength or have a quarter of a cup added to a liter of water and mixed until it dissolves. Use this method as a quick way to do a deep clean or just add it to your car cleaning process. Oil soap is a great conditioner as well as a cleaner. It’s a 2 in one solution.

If you’re out of shampoo or just need a more cost-effective and efficient cleaner, Murphy’s oil soap can also be used to clean your entire car. Clean your interior dashboard, and steering wheel, and add a pea-sized amount to your vacuum foam to clean your car seats.

This is cost-effective as it lasts longer due to its concentration and it is available in a larger quantity for a fraction of the cost of shampoo or liquid soap in that same quantity.

If you’re an artist, like me then you know, potters wheel lubricant can be expensive and without it, you have to wait till your clay completely dries to remove it from the wheel or risk cracking.

Without lubricant, you also have to hear that annoying squeaking of the wheel and that just means the therapeutic value is gone. Keep an all-around lubricant handy, and use Murphy’s oil soap to lubricate the facets of your potter’s wheel. If this is your only use for it, it will last even longer.

After using oil paint the mode of operation is to leave the brushes to soak in a thinning solution or risk losing your brushes totally. The issue with that is, over time, the thinner breaks down the fibers of your brush, leaving you to buy a new brush every so often.

Save your brushes and save some cash by using Murphy’s oil soap to soak the oil paint away and condition your bristles. The absence of alcohol in this efficient cleaner makes it a perfect proxy.

It has been brought to my attention that, Murphy’s oil soap is perfect for cleaning jewelry. Simply mix 1 cup of Murphy’s oil soap with a liter of warm water.

With a brush or other cleaning tools, polish the surface of your necklace, ring, bracelet, etc. To finish the process rinse your jewelry until the slip from the oil soap is gone and hang it or let sit on an absorbent cloth to dry.

One of my more major reasons to not have a Swiffer wet jet is the cost of the refills. If this is your reason too, then we may have found a solution in the form of Murphy’s oil soap.

The oil soap is highly concentrated and an excellent cleaning and conditioning agent, not only for wood floors but for tile as well. Simply dilute it to your liking and pour it into a refill container. This will never leave your floors cloudy or extra slippery.

Wood banisters tend to cake up with dirt over a period of years as we enjoy them and then ignore them. From one extreme to the next.

Over time, dust settles into the groves and cracks until they seem to no longer have their shine and beauty. Restore your wood banisters today with Murphy’s oil soap.

With a cloth or brush, and a small amount of Murphy’s oil soap at full strength, wipe down the banisters paying special attention to the crevices.

After I had my daughter, I took a liking to homemade wipes and reusable cleaning items. Murphy’s oil soap makes an excellent solution for homemade reusable wipes.

Simply add a quarter of a tablespoon of the oil soap to a cup of water. Allow the soap to dissolve and pour it over your stack of cloths to make the wipes.

Allow the cloths to absorb the liquid and you’re good to go. After the use of each, rinse and let dry.

Laminate can easily become cloudy or damaged if you use the wrong cleaning agent. Murphy’s oil soap is gentle yet harsh on dirt. It’s a great agent for cleaning laminate wood floors.

Simply add 1 cup or less to your mop bucket and give your floor a quick wipe. This will lift any stain and there is no need for other cleaning agents or solutions.

If you home-school or use a permanent marker in your daily life and need to keep something handy to lift it off porous or hard-to-clean surfaces or if you accidentally use permanent marker on your whiteboard.

Usually, that’s cause for concern, with Murphy’s oil soap, you can rest easy knowing that it will cleanly remove permanent markers from any surface. At full strength apply a cloth or board cleaner and wipe away the marker stains.

If you live in a household where all-purpose cleaners usually bring on allergic reactions or they’re just too expensive, it’s easy to make one with 3 cups of water, 1 tablespoon of Murphy’s oil soap, and 2 tablespoons of baking soda.

Shake it all together in a spray bottle and use this to clean all your surfaces and crevices around the home, office, or car and enjoy.

An artist’s stencils tend to always get a build-up of paint from the constant use between oil, water, and acrylic paint it catches most of the mess from pattern making and painting.

Clean up your stencils easily by creating a solution of Murphy’s oil soap and water, 1 tablespoon to 1 cup respectively, and leaving your stencils to soak for about an hour and rinse. For more stubborn dried paint, give it a slight scratch to remove.

20. Amplify Magic Eraser

If you like a one-and-done cleaning solution, chances are you have a set of magic erasers at your fingertips. But even magic erasers find it hard to stand up to certain messes.

I find my magic erasers tearing under the pressure of certain jobs. Amplify them now with Murphy’s oil soap. Create a solution of Murphy’s oil soap and water and use it with the magic eraser for a magically effective clean.

Another way to amp up your cleaning power is to use Murphy’s oil soap to remove stains from carpets. This can be done in more than one way.

The first is to add Murphy’s oil soap to your vacuum and use it to steam clean your carpet by adding it to your vacuumed solution.

The second way is to spot treat by adding a small amount to the stained areas, rubbing in, and letting sit for a few minutes to an hour, then scrub clean or vacuum.

One area around the home that often gets overlooked or feels overwhelming to clean is the cabinets around the kitchen and maybe the bathroom. I usually use a little bleach to brighten these areas quickly.

But bleach is more harmful to the environment and may trigger some allergies. Murphy’s oil soap is a more environmentally friendly and natural solution. Simply apply to the cabinet doors and internal space and let dry.

For wooden furniture, dab a pea-sized amount onto a small cloth and apply it all over the surface. The natural oils allow you to use this product to bring out the natural shine of the wood while removing all the dirt and dust.

This is less expensive than furniture polish and has more of an effect on freshening the environment and conditioning the wood. Using Murphy’s oil soap on wooden furniture also reduces the amount of sneezing that may come with dusting alone.

For hardwood floors, it may be tempting to get a wax to bring some shine. Otherwise, the floor looks dull and like something is missing.

If you want to avoid using wax whether it is too time-consuming, too slippery, or just too much work than you care for, an alternative would be to clean the floor regularly with Murphy’s oil soap. Add a tablespoon to a cup of your mop water and enjoy the shining effect.

For a purely natural way to clean your dog’s fur and ensure protection against fleas and ticks, use Murphy’s Oil Soap. Add a quarter cup of Murphy’s oil soap to 4 cups of water and stir.

With a washcloth or soft brush, work your mixture into the dog’s fur and face until he is completely saturated. You can rinse with warm water or cold, depending on your preference for the end result. For optimum shine, rinse with cold water.

Murphy’s oil soap will continue to provide an all-natural option for cleaning and polishing around the home, office, or car. This can be applied to almost all materials with no damage. Simply dilute with water or not at all for each application. This trusted product has been in old-fashioned homes for a multitude of years and continues to receive accolades for its worth.