The Secret to Sparkling Stainless Steel is...

...Baking Soda! It's an amazing thing! I had always heard that it's a great product, but never really tried any of the ways to use it. Now, I swear by it.

A little story on how I discovered it's amazing-ness...

My husband and I remodeled our kitchen about a year ago in our usual DIY way. Originally, we had a very small and shallow sink, and I was definitely ready for an upgrade. I love my new sink now! However, after six months of our not-so-filtered water running in the sink, my beautiful stainless steel sink was turning brown - yuck! I didn't want to use scratch pads on it, due to scratches. Back to this in a minute...

We had gone out to eat at a Japanese hibachi restaurant and after the chef cooked our meal, it was time for clean-up. The grill looked black as black from all the seasonings and oil he used. He scraped the grill to get all the big pieces off, then sprinkled a white powder onto it. With just a wet rag, he cleaned it amazingly clean! I had to find out what he used. It turns out he uses good ole' baking soda!

Now back to my sink issue... (I'm sure you know where this is going.) That night I went home and poured some baking soda into my sink. And using just a regular wet dish rag, I was able to clean it with a little water to sparkling new again! I was amazed! And it took very little arm strength to scrub it.

I also like to use baking soda to clean up my stainless pans and skillets. We switched back to stainless pans a couple of years ago for the durability and longevity of them. I always wondered how people kept them so clean, and now I have the secret!

And, so do you...

Do you have a use for baking soda? I'd love to hear about it! Please share in a comment below.