a tip that's worth its salt

What's worse than spots on your glasses? Stains in your coffee cups. But all you need is table salt to get them gleaming again.

Just pour a tablespoon of salt into each cup and add enough water to create a thick paste. Scrub the brownish stains until they disappear, then rinse. Added bonus: The salt crystals exfoliate your fingers, leaving them soft and smooth.

Use this technique to clean out your office coffee cup. Avoid the communal kitchen sponge at all costs.

Quick, cheap and chemical free — this is just the kind of kitchen tip we love. What are your favorite cleaning tricks?

Comments

I tried this out this past weekend and it totally works. But don't use too much salt, I made that mistake and had a salt water mess. Just a dash of salt + water and it works like a charm. I didn't use my hands though, just used a small cloth and worked fine.

This might sound like overkill, but I use bleach. I drink a lot of tea and it always leaves an unscrubbable (until now - I haven't tried salt yet) stain. I put a splash of bleach in the cup and then fill it the rest of the way with water. Let it sit for a few minutes and then rinse. You can wipe the stain out with a paper towel. It works great, just make sure to rinse the cup thoroughly before using it again.