2020 comin' in clean!
Happy New Year! All of the holiday parties are now in our rearview. The meals have been eaten, the drinks have been served, but as the adage goes: the better the party, the bigger the cleanup. And if your kitchen looks anything like ours, you’re staring down a countertop cluttered with fingerprinted champagne flutes, red-hued wine glasses, sticky-fingered water glasses, greasy pots and pans, and caked-on serving dishes that are in need of a good scrub.
Thus, our tips on how best to clean your partyware:
Stemware. Champagne flutes are narrow and delicate, the last thing you want to do is fold a sponge in half and try to wedge it into the glass only to have it get stuck and not even sufficiently reach the bottom properly. Our solution: the Magic Wand. It is slender and soft and was thoughtfully designed to fit snugly inside your champagne flutes and get them impossibly clean. The Magic Wand even reaches the very bottom just above the stem, which is always just out of reach of sideways-folded sponges. And of course, you can use your Magic Wand on your wine glasses as well.
Glassware. Our Magic Wand is pretty flexible so you can absolutely use it on your glasses. Though it is slender and not specifically designed for regular glasses, it’ll do the job credibly. However, if you’re persnickety with your brushes and like specificity, our Crystal Clear has a wider, rounder head which means it covers more area faster, so you can clean your glasses quickly and efficiently. Because nobody wants to stand at the kitchen sink any longer than they have to!
Getting Rid of Grease. Do you ever have a greasy pot or pan and you start cleaning it with your sponge and instead of the grease dissipating it seems to saturate the sponge and spread onto all of your other dishes? Vinegar and/or baking soda can help you stem the tide. Just dilute some vinegar with water and soak your greasy pots or pans for a few minutes then wipe down with a sponge. If the grease is pretty bad, baking soda is your next-level defense. Rinse your pot or pan with water and then sprinkle a bit in the wet pan. Scrub with a scrubbing sponge or brush, then clean with warm soapy water.
Baked-on, Caked-on. You all know step one: let them soak. It softens whatever is stuck to the side or your dishware. But what next? When baking and serving dishes are covered in food that looks so stuck-on, it can be intimidating. We imagine standing at the sink, our fingers pressing desperately into our scrubbing sponges and scouring pads asking ourselves, “is it getting any better or am I imagining this?” Cue: Our Power Couple. A pair of recycled plastic and silicone scrapers that remove caked-on gunk with the greatest of ease. They are easy on stainless steel, non-stick, glass, and other surfaces (if you’re using something you’re unsure of or that has been in the family for ages, test a small area to begin).
And of course, don’t forget your gloves! They will help keep your hands soft -- because this time of year with the cold stealing all of our skin’s moisture, we need all of the help we can get.
After all that, sit back, relax, and rejoice in an empty kitchen sink.