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I accidentally spilled cooking oil all over my floor(tiles). I tried washing my floor with water and then wiping it with dry cloth but it gets even worse. How can I effectively clean up the cooking oil spill?

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  • What kind of floor is it? Wooden or laminated or tiles or something else?
    – holroy
    Dec 13, 2015 at 20:14
  • Tiles, sorry I should have mentioned it here
    – Shashank
    Dec 14, 2015 at 5:05
  • Key point is that once you've used whatever to absorb the bulk of the spill (rags, towels, kitty litter, etc. as suggested in many of the answers), you need to use something detergent based to cut the remaining oil film; water alone won't do it. Water with dish detergent is probably the best/most readily available option.
    – Anthony X
    Sep 23, 2017 at 14:56

13 Answers 13

14

First, you should cover the cooking oil in either kitty litter (I've found this works best, but you may not always have it) or baking soda. After waiting about 15 minutes, you can use paper towels to pick up and throw out the kitty litter/baking soda.

Next, you can use a piece of bread to wipe up any oil that is left. A sponge also works here. Lastly, mop the floor with dish soap and warm water. You may need to repeat some of the steps more than once for the best result.

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  • 1
    Kitty litter??? Spread kitty litter in the kitchen??
    – papakias
    Apr 13, 2017 at 9:22
  • 7
    @papakias Kitty litter is the stuff within the box, not the cat droppings. This stuff is great at absorbing fluids.
    – holroy
    Apr 13, 2017 at 11:22
  • @holroy aaaahh ok! Got panicked for a moment there
    – papakias
    Apr 13, 2017 at 12:31
4

You could use coconut husk to absorb all cooking oil. If not available, you could also use ordinary paper for the same. Thus you could later use this wasted oil at least for igniting something.Most probably, in the case if you have a wood burner.Try to clean your tile with these, not leaving even a drop of oil behind.

Next, I would prefer dish washing liquid to do a final touch to your area. Take some dish washing liquid and apply it onto the area affected, with a scrubber.Wait for some time.This is used to absorb the oil left overs if any.At last, with a wet cloth, wipe out the area. And make the floor dry with a ceiling fan.

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Cheaper and most used approach:

  1. Take all the excess oil from the floor to a vessel using a paper-napkin or spoon.
  2. Spread flour (available in each kitchen) on the oily part.
  3. Rub the flour on the oily parts (it will even go through tiny lanes if any on the floor) till the floor gets dry.
  4. Collect the flour using vacuum cleaner and use soap and sponge to clean the floor.

Cheers

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Well i have been through the same situation but I spilled like half litre of cooking oil and my mom was about to come in home in half and hour so what did I do... First thing I did was to go to Google then I read what suggestions were given here but I had no item like napkin or bread in my house so I poured baking soda all over the oil then waited around 10 mins i found some old clothes and mopped the oil but still there was a little bit of oil on the floor so I get my Washing powder poured it on left oil took a brush brushed that floor and mopped it that's it last thing is to do is to switch on the fan or exhaust fan in kitchen and voilà it's done :)

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Wash with a sponge or sponge mop lightly dampened with dishwashing liquid (some brands are specially marked as "grease cutting" or "removes grease"; these are the best for this), then dry with either a dry sponge, towel, or paper towel. It's the detergent action that will remove the oil from the tile.

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First I use kitchen paper or useless piece of cloth (old towel, t-shirt) to absorb the oil as much as possible.

After that I clean the floor with sponge and dish washing liquid or liquid soap and warm water.

And finally use kitchen paper again to wipe dry.

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I'm not 100% sure whether you're asking how to remove any staining from the oil, or whether to restore the floor to something you can walk across without slipping and sliding everywhere because its oily. And when you say 'tiles', it's not clear whether you mean ceramic tiles, or terracotta or other material. If the tiles are glazed ceramic, then you may have some residual staining in the grout between them - that will be next to impossible to remove without scraping out existing grout and redoing it. If the tiles are unglazed, or unsealed, then you won't get the stain out of those either. If, though, the problem is slipperiness, then washing the floor with a strong cleaner such as Flash, then rinsing/mopping with hot water afterwards, twice, should stop that.

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After wiping most of the oil that you can trap with paper towels, use some kitchen wipes until all oil is off. These have grease cutting agents that just don't push oil around but instead get them off.

Something like the Chlorox wipes - the Kirkland (Costco) kitchen wipe is the best in my opinion mainly because of its size and durability for such oily tasks.

I have used this method successfully for not so major oil spills. Good luck!

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Soak as much of it up with a large old towel that you will throw away. Then liberally pour salt all over the spill. Lots of it. After about 15 minutes sweep up the salt. Then wash the floor with vinegar and Dawn dish detergent. Learned this when working at a fried fish resturant

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Use Tissue Papers.

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Place a tissue paper on the oil spilled on the floor. Tissue papers will soak all the oil particles from the floor. Do this several times on the portion where the oil is spilled. After soaking the oil on tissue paper you can clean the floor with wet cloth.

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You could try to put talc (aka talcum aka baby powder) on the stain and let it sink in before polishing it away. This only works with recent stains.

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  • 1
    Put what? I don't know what this answer means. Dec 13, 2015 at 18:42
  • I'm guessing he means "talc". Dec 13, 2015 at 20:23
  • that's the way I read it too Dec 19, 2017 at 9:57
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http://lifehacker.com/5812561/not-just-for-cooking-use-corn-starch-to-clean-up-stains-spills-furniture-and-more

http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2011/03/04/cornstarch-proposed-solution-future-bp-style-oil-spills

If you have an oily floor, open a bag of corn starch and apply liberally to the affected area. (Cover the area in corn starch) . Wait 10-15 minutes and then sweep up the corn starch.

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I hear corn starch is really good

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    Could you please add more explanation to this? Is there any specific way you should use the corn starch? Will that actually pick up everything?
    – michaelpri
    Dec 30, 2015 at 6:10

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