DIY 3-Ingredient Grease Cleaner

Do you have a spot in your kitchen where all the grease seems to go? For us, it's the microwave mounted above the stove. It's a good 2 feet above the cooking surface, so don't ask me how the grease gets up there, but it does. And it's a sticky, gooey, hard-to-remove grease, perfectly situated above the line of sight so that the only time you remember it's there is when you reach up to open the cabinet immediately above it. Eww!

I've tried all-purpose spray cleaner, but even with a lot of wiping, it stays greasy, especially if I haven't cleaned up there in a while. Today, I decided to try something completely different.

I've read that plain old baking soda works as a gentle abrasive cleaner, but I had no idea about its total domination over grease. Inspired by a library book on green cleaning, I made a slurry of just 3 ingredients:

1 part baking soda
1 part water
a few drops of essential oil (I used orange)

Stir it up and it'll be a creamy, white goo:

Here's what happened with literally five seconds of circular wiping when applied with a dish towel on my greasy-as-hell microwave:

(Sorry, I warned you it was disgusting)

While I was at it, I cleaned up our bathroom scale that carried the evidence of something spilled and left to dry: 

Before:

After: 

Seriously, it really works. I took the little bit that was left on the towel and wiped down the fronts of our stainless appliances, trash can and even shined up the sink. Just rinse with water after cleaning.

Genius.