The “cleanfluencer” explosion has resulted in hacks that simply don’t work and could be damaging your kitchen appliances.

Some of the most popular hacks include using cola to remove toilet limescale, coffee grounds to deodorise fridges and hot water to clean wooden spoons.

However, not all of these hacks work and could cause more harm than good when it comes to your home appliances including your dishwasher.

With this in mind, cleaning expert Laura Harnett at Seep eco cleaning tools has shared some natural (and cheap) alternatives to using chemicals in the home so you never need to resort to ones that could ruin your appliances.

One cleaning hack that social media has popularised is using a lemon in your dishwasher.

While lemons typically are a great cleaning product, they are not good to try in the dishwasher.

The TikTok hack tells you to add a wedge of lemon into the dishwasher for a cycle to help keep limescale at bay and kill germs.

Laura explains why this hack doesn’t work. She said: “Even adding a whole lemon to a dishwasher cycle won’t make any difference to germs or limescale and it could also disintegrate and clog up the filter causing damage to your appliance.”

Laura instead advises homeowners to use an alternative eco-friendly method.

She said: “To remove bacteria and germs the best thing to do is add a cup full of white vinegar and run a normal cycle as this will disinfect the inside.

“If the machine is smelly then sprinkle a cup of baking soda in the machine and run it on a normal cycle.

“Don’t use them together as this creates a bubbly paste that is great for some cleaning tasks but not this one.”

White vinegar can be bought from most local supermarkets and online for as little as 40p from Sainsbury’s.

What do you use to clean your dishwasher? Let us know in the comments.