This Tried-and-True Cleaning Product Is the Only One I Use
I sometimes wonder how I ever got by without this stuff.
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Scouted/Amazon
Most cleaning supplies don't do the trick. Especially on the tough stuff, you can spend half an hour scrubbing a favorite cooking pan beset by grease or the sink with hard water stains and it’ll look pretty much the same. I’ve tried fancy, new products, but at the end of the day, nothing works better than this powder in a can that’s been keeping homes clean for more than a hundred years.
Bar Keepers Friend
Whenever I set out to clean my home, I ask myself, can I clean this with counter spray or dish soap and a rag? If the answer is no, then a thoughtful application of Bar Keepers Friend usually does the trick. I first picked up a can of this borderline magical cleaning powder to clean my stainless steel pans after I couldn’t budge the grease that had been burned and baked into them. Knowing that steel wool was the wrong way to go, I added a few shakes of Bar Keepers Friend, a little warm water and a few minutes later was able to lightly sponge away the grease buildup that I thought was permanent.
But Bar Keepers Friend isn’t just great for cookware. It’s also very effective on stovetops and grills. The powder, which is an Oxilic Acid mixed with mineral abrasive, is strong, but gentle enough to use on glass. I was able to see into my oven for the first time in years after I used this stuff on the oven door window. Bar Keepers Friend also has some particularly effective applications in the bathroom. Just about any hard water stain you might find in your toilet or in the bathtub will wither away when put up against this powder. I’ve cleaned ancient porcelain bathtubs stained green and pink, kitchen sinks that I thought had gone beyond the pale, and shower doors that you never would have thought were supposed to be see-through.
A pair of gloves isn’t a bad idea when applying the power, but Barkeeper’s Friend makes short work of some of the most stubborn stains I’ve ever encountered. Once you get a can of Bar Keepers Friend in your house, I doubt that you’ll ever be able to live without it. I even give it as a cheap, incredibly appreciated gift to friends when they move or buy a house. Once you start using this stuff, you may just find that dozens of cleaning projects in your house that seemed hopeless now can be knocked out in minutes.
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