Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Do you have too many pins on Pinterest and not enough time to try them all? Don't worry — the Page Two editors of ksl.com will try them out and give you the low-down. This week we’re sampling do- it-yourself cleaning tips:
Clear a clogged drain
The folks at diylife.com give us an easy and eco- friendly way to clear a clogged drain: Pour a cup of baking soda down the drain, followed by a cup of white vinegar (slowly). Cover the drain and let it sit, then pour a gallon of boiling water down the drain. It sounds easy enough, but it didn’t work. The baking soda didn’t even make it down. Granted, my drain was a little backed up; still, I don’t know how you could even get an entire cup of any kind of powder down a bathroom drain at all. Most of it just sat there, foaming in the sink with the vinegar. While this may work as a regular treatment to keep clogs from forming, it did nothing to unclog a drain as promised. Final grade: D
Clean your toilet with just one flushFrom lifehackery.com comes this quick tip for cleaning your toilet with baking soda: “Add a cup to the toilet, leave it for an hour and then flush. It will clean the toilet and absorb the odor.” I have one thing to say about that: false. This did nothing but waste a cup of baking soda. Final grade: F
Tub and shower magic
The next tip from food.com is said to magically erase soap scum and other assorted bathtub yuckiness with a mixture of dish soap and vinegar. The friend I pinned this gem from said, “I just tried this. I will NEVER buy Comet, Soft Scrub, etc. again. ... It wiped down like nothing was ever there. It is sparkling!”
With such lofty praise, I had to give it a try. You see, our tub is pretty gross. We use it for our toddler son, who gets several bubble baths a week. Contrary to what you may think, bubbles do not leave behind a clean tub. Plus, it’s a cheap, builder-grade bathtub that was pretty dingy when we moved in. I’ve come to accept a ring around it as something I have to live with.
So I figured I had nothing to lose by trying this pin. I mixed equal parts of Dawn dish soap (supposedly the blue kind is a must) and vinegar, put it in a spray bottleand applied it liberally in the bathtub. I came back an hour later with a sponge and, lo and behold, all I had to do was wipe the goo off — no scrubbing, no sweating, no cursing. It truly was magic, and I was completely won over. The only drawback was the strong vinegar odor left in the bathroom for a day or two, but that I can live with. Final grade: A-
Use a dryer sheet as shower cleaner
This next pin did not link to a blog or website; it was just a photo with this caption: “Use a dryer sheet to clean your bathroom! Just add some water and it will clean up any hard-to-remove soap scum!” Since it was my husband’s turn to clean our glass shower, I let him give this tip a shot. He came back 20 minutes later and said, “It didn’t work.” Now, my husband has some muscle on him, so if he couldn’t scrub the soap scum off using this method, I don’t think anyone could, let alone the average housewife. Again, this method may work for mild stains, but with our crusty-looking glass, it didn’t do a thing. Final grade: F
The easy way to clean a glass cook top stove
Here’s another tip for baking soda: Clean a glass cook-top stove with baking soda and water. Here’s what behindthestudio.com recommends: Apply a generous amount of baking soda over the affected area. Fill a bowl with hot tap water mixed with a little dish soap. Submerge the rag in the bowl, wring half of the water out, then lay the rag flat across the cook top. Wait about 15 minutes, then scrub the stove with the wet rag. Finish up by drying the surface and giving it a once-over with glass cleaner. The promise is a like-new finish, but that’s not what I got. It did a decent job, but it didn’t live up to its billing. It wasn’t a total failure, but I won’t bother with this method again. Final grade: B-
