Bar Keepers Friend is a powerhouse cleaner that relies on oxalic acid and mild abrasives to cut through rust, mineral deposits, and tarnish. Depending on what you are trying to clean, you can use common household items or store-bought equivalents to achieve the same brilliant results.
The natural options like vinegar and baking soda are great if you want to keep things simple and safe, while products like CLR are perfect when you need something stronger for specific problems. It's a good idea to keep a few different options in your cleaning supplies so you're ready for any mess.
Bar Keepers Friend is an oxalic acid-based cleaner used to dissolve rust, mineral deposits, and tarnish, making it ideal for metal and stainless steel. Ajax is a bleach-based alkaline cleanser with mild abrasives, best for whitening surfaces, cutting through everyday grease, and deodorizing.
The Pink Stuff and Bar Keepers Friend (BKF) are both heavy-duty cleaners, but they are not the same. While both tackle tough grease and grime, they have different chemical makeups and cleaning mechanisms:
Baking soda (or Bar Keepers Friend) is all you need to clean stubborn food residue or baked-on oil from your STAUB pieces. This is the method we recommend for both the inside and outside of our cookware. Sprinkle a few tablespoons of baking soda on a wet STAUB and scrub with a soft sponge over any stubborn spots.
To DIY an effective substitute for Bar Keepers Friend, combine 1 cup of baking soda, ½ cup of salt, and ½ cup of borax. Mix thoroughly and add water to create a scrubbing paste. This homemade paste breaks down grease and lifts rust from stainless steel, copper, and porcelain.
To remove baked-on black residue from the bottom of a pan, create a paste using 3 parts baking soda and 1 part water. Apply it to the stains, let it sit for 10 to 20 minutes, and scrub with a non-abrasive scouring pad.
Dish soap has the ability to lubricate and break down the bonds of fats and grease. When poured into the toilet, dish soap helps lubricate the waste causing the clog, while also breaking down its structure, allowing it to easily flow down the drain.
Hotels keep glass shower doors spotless by combining strong commercial cleaning agents with routine maintenance and smart preventative coatings. Because they deal with heavy daily guest turnover, housekeeping staff rely on quick but highly effective strategies to prevent soap scum and hard water buildup.
Neither is objectively "better" overall; they excel at entirely different types of cleaning. Bar Keepers Friend is superior for dissolving mineral deposits, rust, and tarnish, while Comet is better for general disinfecting, grease, and heavy organic stains due to its bleach content.
Bar Keepers Friend is a powerful cleaner that works wonders on stainless steel, glass, and porcelain, but its active ingredient (oxalic acid) and abrasive nature can ruin delicate and porous surfaces. Never use it on cast iron, non-stick cookware, marble, granite, wood, leather, or painted surfaces.
Neither is universally "better" because they serve different purposes. Ajax is a client-side "pull" mechanism for loading new data without reloading the page, whereas Comet is a server-side "push" technique for real-time streaming.
Cleaning Your Oven with Baking Soda and Vinegar
Spritz with water, or a 3:1 water to white vinegar solution. If you use vinegar, baking soda will bubble. Let sit for 15-20 minutes, after your oven has cooled. Wipe up baking soda and dissolved food with wet paper towels.
Both Bar Keepers Friend (BKF) and Soft Scrub are heavy-hitting, non-scratch liquid cleansers, but they rely on different core chemistries. Choosing between them depends on the specific stain, as one may excel where the other falls short.
Professional window cleaners use specialized concentrates that prioritize squeegee glide, hard-water management, and streak-free drying. Unlike household triggers, pros mix super-concentrated soaps with water in buckets to wash and squeegee large panes quickly.
Travelers usually put tape over hotel outlets for two main reasons: to block distracting LED lights from electronic devices and ensure a dark room, or as a makeshift childproofing measure to prevent small children from poking foreign objects into the sockets.
If your glass shower doors are dirty and hard to clean, let me show you a few tips to make it quick and easy. My go-to products for this are either Bar Keepers Friend More spray or a DIY mix, which is one cup vinegar, one cup water, and about a teaspoon of Dawn dish soap.
The most stolen item from a hotel room is towels. Because they are easy to pack and readily accessible, nearly 90% of hotel workers report guests regularly taking them.
People put aluminum foil in the toilet as an internet-famous cleaning and maintenance hack, though its actual effectiveness is highly debated. The reasons for doing it generally fall into two categories:
Tackle severely stained toilet bowls by emptying the water to expose the stains, then applying a strong acid (like hydrochloric acid or vinegar) or a pumice stone. The most effective approach depends on the stain: mineral/limescale rings require an acid to dissolve the buildup, while organic stains respond well to bleach.
🧼 How It Works: Take a bar of soap (or cut one into smaller pieces). Drop it into the toilet tank—not the bowl. Every flush releases a small amount of soapy water, helping to break down stains and keep the bowl fresh.
Cleaning a pan with hot water
Cleaning things with boiling water is often a good idea. This straightforward technique can work wonderfully for getting burnt food off of pans.
Make a paste of baking soda and water (the consistency of toothpaste works well). Use a sponge to cover the stains with the baking soda paste, and let the solution sit on the scorched areas for 15 or 20 minutes. Does vinegar damage stainless steel? Emphatically, no.
The Castile soap works to clean the pan, the orange oil and baking soda help to lift anything that is stuck to the pan without scratching. For really tough spots, add some more paste and some warm water, then scrub with sponge. I store my Pot and Pan Cleaner Paste in a glass jar and keep it under my sink.