sue’s news

[Update April 3 '10: I see that a lot of people find this entry through Google -- Please leave a comment if it helped you!  Plus, here's a new discovery: Dishwasher detergent also removed old mold and stains from our white polymer shower stall (Corian-type material). Cover the stained area with a thick layer of paste and leave as long as you can. I treated a big pinkish stain for a whole day, then repeated to get areas I'd missed. Amazing how much less scary and low-rent our shower looks now.)

[Update March 4 '10: I was right; you don't need to use a whole bottle. Again, not the Dawn or Palmolive or whatever you use to hand-wash dishes in the sink, but the pastier, concentrated liquid detergent that goes into the dishwasher. Coat the stain with a thin layer of paste. Leave it there 5 minutes or longer, then rinse. If it ain't white, let me know about it!]

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Accidental discovery: Our kitchen has a white enamel (or “porcelain,” as I incorrectly call it for reasons unknown) sink, and despite our efforts with bleach to remove stains from tea, blueberries, etc., gradually the sink has been getting yellower and yellower.  Especially around the drain.  Ech.

Recently I dumped out some old dishwasher soap that my husband reported had gotten too gloopy to use in the washer. Planning to recycle the bottles, I let the soap drain into the sink, where it made a layer about a half-inch thick. It sat there a couple hours while I did other tasks. When I came to rinse it out:  White sinks!  (It didn’t remove scorchmarks, but it clobbered everything else.)

I filled the sink with water, dumped in the remaining liquid and left it for a few hours, stirring occasionally. This whitened up the sides, too.

So try coating your white enamel sink with a layer of dishwasher detergent and letting it sit awhile.  I’m sure you don’t have to use a whole bottle.  But regular hand-washing dish soap has never done my sinks much good, and this does. No scrubbing, either!