Your beautiful porcelain sink is not always going to look 100% when it’s exposed to the harsh elements that come from ordinary tap water. Adding to the problems of stains, anything that contains pigments or has direct metal interaction will also contribute to making stains. Here are the best products that will remove these stains and make porcelain surfaces appear flawless once again.
Borax And Lemon Juice
Back in the old days, there wasn’t a household that didn’t have a box of Borax under the sink to clean a variety of surfaces. Since it does wonder for removing stains from clothes, why wouldn’t it be an effective additive for removing porcelain stains? This method is best for removing rust stains and the real trick here is to make a paste using Borax powder and a bit of lemon juice.
Using a sponge to apply the paste, use a bit of light rubbing in circles to remove offending stains and then allow it to dry. The power of lemon juice and Borax will do the rest to naturally bleach out the rust color. After a while, it can be removed using a sponge and clean water and then dry it using paper towels. For very stubborn stains, this method should be repeated twice until the rust stains are totally gone.
Bleach
Have you heard about this amazingly simple trick? Take paper towels and lay them anywhere you have stains on the porcelain surface. Overlap them to keep the towels in place. Now you spray or carefully pour bleach onto the paper towels to wet them out.
Let these stand for at least 15 minutes while the paper towels draw out any stain into the paper towel.
Afterward, use rubber gloves to rub off any surface that still has staining using the same paper towels as an improvisational scrubber. Now rinse the surface of the porcelain with warm water to remove any bleach. Dry the surface with some new paper towels and the stains should be completely gone. Do this on days when you don’t have too many people around since bleach tends to fill any room with bleach fumes.
Rubbing Alcohol
If you’ve ever had problems with removing hair dye from porcelain, it can be tricky, to say the least. You can use a cotton ball soaked with rubbing alcohol to work on hair dye stains. If this isn’t working, you can also try nail polish remover. Don’t ever mix these two together since they aren’t compatible and can create a nasty chemical reaction. Work on each stain until the dye starts to come out from the surface and collects in the cotton ball.
Be sure to use kitchen gloves to keep these chemicals off your skin. It also prevents any rehydrated dye from soaking into your skin and staining your fingers! This method works great when you have spatters and drips that come from dying your hair close to the sink. Even stains that have been around for a couple weeks can still be removed using either of these two solvents.
Hydrogen Peroxide
When you have a variety of general stains including hard water stains, this is when you need to bring out the miracle cure using hydrogen peroxide. Actually, this uses hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. The first step is to use baking soda on a moist sponge to lightly scrub a stained area for one minute. After this, spray hydrogen peroxide onto the baking soda paste and allow this to chemically react for a couple more minutes.
This reaction will remove calcium buildup safely and quickly. All that’s required afterward is to wash away the residue and clean it dry with a paper towel. These are two components that won’t be hazardous to work around since there aren’t any dangerous fumes that come from making them react.
White Vinegar And Baking Soda
This is another simple and non-toxic chemical reaction that works much better for mold and mildew stains. It all starts with a moist sponge and a bit of baking soda to create a paste. Work this over stains and allow these to sit for at least one hour. Using a spray bottle, add three parts hot water and one part white vinegar. Swirl these two together in the bottle and then spray this mixture onto the baking soda to watch the reaction.
If you’ve seen vinegar and baking soda react before with science projects, it will bubble like crazy. This is how the mildew stains are chemically removed from porcelain without any damage to the surface. If there are still persistent stains, use a little dish soap in the baking soda to completely remove deeper stains. It also helps to buff away micro scratches that appear where the mold or mildew had grown.