Friday Face-off: WD-40 vs. Olive Oil Spray

This may be a weird way to kick of a "Friday Face-Off" concept, but it is definitely the most timely of my planned mashups. When I started scribbling away at blog ideas, I decided that I wanted to have a chance to pit two different products, ideas, actions, or activities against each other and evaluate the results. I promise that the other ideas I have for the Face-Off are cooler things like "Dishwasher vs. Hand wash your dishes" or "Burts Bees vs. Aubrey Organics lip gloss". But today's Face-Off is straight from my actual life this week, so I thought it was kind of fun.

So what about my week inspired me walk around the apartment with a can of olive oil spray, you may ask? Well, after months of suffering, I suddenly decided yesterday that I had HAD IT with our stupid, squeaky front door. While Les didn't seem to notice the offending noises, I had grown weary of wincing with headache and embarrassment every time he or I opened or closed our door.  Ear-splitting screeches would pierce the tranquil apartment hallway as I tried to sneak in or out before any of my neighbors could barge out of their unit and yell at me.

Whenever something was rusty or squeaky or stuck when I was a kid, my dad would bust out a rusty can of WD-40, point it at the offending object, and miraculously all would be well. But as I was about to write myself a post-it note to buy some WD-40 at the Walgreens on my way home from work, I paused to wonder just what is in that yellow and blue can of magic.

Here's what I could find out about the ingredients list: They won't tell us. It's a "trade secret". Ok, fine. That doesn't mean it's made of baby seal tears and ozone, but it does leave a lot to the imagination. Snopes says that the Material Safety Data Sheet for WD-40 lists its ingredients as primarily petroleum-based. Wonderful. We don't want any more of those in our house.

But then I found a couple of sites that claim that the main ingredient in WD-40 is actually compressed fish oil! Well whaddya know. I have a can of compressed oil in my cabinet already:

Actually, I have the generic Target brand olive oil spray. Whatever. I marched happily to the hinges with my can of non-stick spray and gave our door a good lubing. And I can proudly report that the door now swings silently and smoothly. Without an extra can of stuff, trip to the store, or shelling out any more cashola. Is WD-40 really made of fish oil? I don't care. I'd rather not use fish-based products either.

So in our first Friday Face-Off, I'm going to go with Olive Oil Spray for the WIN!