Do social media’s washing-up hacks actually work?
by Sophie Whitbread
Are your pots and pans less shine and more grime? Social media is packed with hacks promising to clean your kitchen kit and make it sparkle. I tried some of them on well-used pots and pans in my home kitchen.
The hack that’s got us talking
A ‘magic’ cleaning hack, made popular by TikToker Dan Shaba, aims to make the bottom of pots and pans look new again. “Finally, a hack that’s actually useful”, the video with millions of views is captioned, and it appears all you need to glow-up your pans is some items you probably have in the cupboard.
Cover the base of a pan in salt and baking soda – the video doesn’t give amounts so I guessed half a tablespoon of each. Drizzle washing-up liquid on top, then scrub with a scourer. Place kitchen paper on top and press down. Pour vinegar over the paper until it is covered (I used two tablespoons). With no time-scale given, I left it overnight (about 9 hours), but some people have left it for five minutes. Then wipe the pan with the kitchen roll and rinse under the tap.
Did it work? The minimally stained parts of the pan lightened slightly, but the majority stayed on. Some people have shared their success with this method on social media, and my pan isn’t quite as looked after as the one Shaba successfully cleans in his video, so perhaps it was too far gone to be saved.
I scoured social media for more cleaning solutions, this time focusing on the inside of pans, which I reckon is more important anyway.
Boiling stuff inside the pan
“No need to scrub, yay yay yay”, writes TikToker Samira Kazan, who uses a humble teabag (used or fresh) and hot water to rid her sticky baking tray of grease and even stains. It sounds surprising that the same thing that can stain your mugs, clothes, carpet and teeth a dirty brown might make your pans sparkle.
The video suggests adding a bit of vinegar if there are hard stains, so I tried mixing this with the tea. After half an hour of watching a breakfast teabag steep in just-boiled water in the baking tray, lots of the grease certainly did lift off, although the stains didn’t budge. In the words of pop group TLC, “I don’t want no scrubs”, so I was pretty happy. But then I tried the same process with just-boiled water and no tea, again lots of the grease lifted off, so it’s difficult to be sure if the teabag had much effect!
Teabags aren’t the only thing people are boiling in the hope of gaining a scrub-free life. Some people have sworn by boiling cola in pans, but when I tried this, it made a sticky mess and left a scummy rim around the outside of the pan, which needed even more elbow grease to get off.
Many others share their own scrub-free tricks, mostly using salt or baking soda and a halved lemon or potato in place of a sponge. These didn’t work for me, inside or outside the pan.
Washing-up liquid v washing powder
Washing-up liquid is good at getting grease off trays and pans, but it doesn’t always lift off years-old stains. Washing powder designed for clothes, however, did the trick. While it couldn’t eliminate the hefty marks from the bottom of the pan, it cleaned up the inside incredibly well. Let a teaspoon of powder soak in boiling water before washing up, or for hefty stains, use it as a scrub. 10 out of 10 on my completely legitimate (made up) pan-reviving scale. Wash the pan and your hands well (or wearing washing up gloves) after using it.
