Baking soda

As a paste with a little water it is a soft scouring cream for enamel, stainless steel and the inside of an oven. It is abrasive enough to shift residue and soft enough not to scratch.

Left dry in an open dish, or sprinkled on a carpet for an hour before vacuuming, it takes up odours instead of adding a scent on top of them.

Gentle enough to need no gloves for ordinary use. Still test on high-gloss and painted surfaces first — mild abrasion is abrasion.

Not the same thing as soda crystals, which are far stronger. Recipes are not interchangeable.