Help! Kitchen cabinet doors smell awful

Kitchen

Please offer any advice! Desperate for a solution.

Posting for a friend who came over today to escape the smell of her kitchen cabinet doors. The cabinets are old and cheap (not real wood but colour of wood). She cannot replace because she’s renting.

Kitchen cabinet doors had a strong food smell when she moved in, so she cleaned with a honeysuckle scented soap. Unfortunately, the combination of those smells is even worse than the original.

Here’s what she’s tried so far:

  1. Dawn dishwashing soap
  2. Charcoal
  3. Baking powder
  4. Zep degreaser
  5. Isopropyl alcohol

In googling this dilemma, one suggestion was to use Minwax wipe on poly. Any idea if this would work? Any drawbacks?

Thank you in advance for reading and (hopefully) replying!

Posted Sep 3, 2025, 6:20 PM UTC

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