I love Pinterest. In fact, I am probably slightly obsessed with Pinterest. It is such a great way to get new recipe ideas, house projects and my favorite is cleaning tips. So, a couple days ago I searched on Pinterest for a way to get the tomato sauce stains out of my food storage containers. Three ideas later and I still have tomato stained Tupperware. I had five containers I tried these on and it failed on all five! I was so bummed about these Pinterest fails.
I first tried baking soda and water. I made it up into a paste and then rubbed it on the containers. Multiple articles mentioned that within a few minutes you could see the paste suck out the color from the container. It sucked for sure. 🙂 Thirty minutes into it, with lots of scrubbing the stain hadn't budged.
I moved on to another popular pin. Rub the container with the lemon and the stain will go away. I tried it, then I let it sit for a few minutes. Nothing. I scrubbed at the container and let it soak. Still didn't lighten at all.
Finally, I finished with another idea I had seen. Lemon juice with salt mixed in. The salt would help scrape away the stain. Nope, no luck. After trying for about 10 minutes I gave up.
By this time I needed to pick up the kiddo at practice, so I just gave up on cleaning the stains. I guess we are forever doomed to eat from stained Tupperware. I still love Pinterest, it is awesome. But, I have to say Pinterest let me down this time.
What about you? What has been your biggest Pinterest fail? What are your tips for getting stains from Tupperware? I would love to hear them.
Angela @ Simply Beautiful By Angela says
I have tried and tried to find a good way to clean my glass stovetop and everything I've seen on Pinterest has failed. I can totally relate!!
Irma says
Rinse stained container in a solution of bleach and water and put out in direct sunlight...Hasn't failed me yet. Also works great on dingy white clothing... Your whites will never be whiter!!
Meredith @ The Palette Muse says
I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one who has pinterest fails! Sorry, I have no advice for you. We just use tomato-stained tupperware. 🙂 But for every fail, you know there will be more inspiration next time...
Tanya @ Mom's Small Victories says
Tomato stains are sooo annoying. Sorry these failed you. I bought some new cookware that is ceramic nonstick and white on the inside and all I'm thinking is it's going to get stained the first time I make spaghetti sauce or chorizo. I haven't opened it yet, might return it. Anyway, Thanks for sharing with Small Victories Sunday Linkup. Pinning to our linkup board and hope you join us again this weekend.
Lexi says
I love pinterest and sometimes the advice is great but sometimes it isn't. The worst one I have tried was a mix to get rid of ants-it was a complete flop. Good luck with the Tupperware and if you find one that works hopefully you will share that with us as nothing I have tried has worked for me either
Julie says
I will definitely let everyone know if I find something that works. 🙂
S.L. Payne says
We were able to bleach the tomato stains on our cutting board just by putting it in the sun for a day or two. I can't remember exactly how long, but it actually worked- I was so skeptical when my husband told me to do it, but I was totally wrong! I have a feeling though it makes a difference what kind of plastic it is. Good luck! I've tried a bunch of pinterest and had a bunch of fails too. I think the worst was a teriyaki chicken that was done in the crock pot and it just tasted gross and our kids who normally love it wouldn't touch it. Oh well, but it was worth a try! I'm up for any crock pot ideas!
-Sara, uncommongrace.net
Helene says
It's not just me! Sometimes those Pinterest "hacks" are just baloney!
Julie says
I agree! It always looks better on pinterest, I think.
Rachel G says
Man, sorry it didn't work! It's so frustrating when tupperware gets stained like that, but it's kind of unavoidable, since we're meant to store food in them!
Pat says
I was going to say bleach too.
Anjali says
I totally agree and have been equally let down! For me it was all the suggestions on how to remove jar labels. From peanut butter....to oil and baking soda....to vinegar and baking soda...nothing really worked. Labels that were already easy came off but those tough suckers with all their guck stayed on. In the end it was good old fashioned soaking and scrubbing that came through.
Julie says
Nice to know, I just got a new jar I wanted to remove the label on. Sometimes a little bit of muscle is what works best. 🙂
Danielle says
For some jars just washing them in the dishwasher works, for others I have held them over a steaming tea pot (careful with this one) but for the hardest ones I used Windex - I sprayed it on, put it in a ziplock bag and left it over night and the sticky FINALLY came off. On a side note- I also used Windex to clean the grease and grim that built up on said tea pot from sitting on my stove all the time - worked quite well.
Julie says
Thanks for the tips!
Heather Doss says
For the jar label: I know plain old butter gets most stickers off! First peel the label off best you can from the jar (or whatever the item may be). Then simply rub some butter on what's left of the label. Sometimes you can rub it on and rub it straight back off. Sometimes you've gotta let it sit on there and rub on it periodically until it all comes off. some stickers are worse than others. That's a trick learned by my grandma. This definitely works on MOST stickers.
Shelby says
I haven't tried this on tomato stains, but the fizzy denture cleaners (like Polident) work wonderfully on tea stains.
Julie says
I will have to try that. Thanks!
Celi says
I hear throwing them away and replacing with new ones works wonders. 😉 Lol... No but seriously I actually rubbed the inside of mine with a paste of lemon juice and baking soda then I set it out in the sun for a full day and it worked. However when I tried it with a different plastic container it did not work. So I guess it depends on the type of plastic. Can't guarantee it will work for you but hey, it's worth a shot. Good Luck!!!
Julie says
I laughed for 5 minutes after reading that! Your right, sometimes you just have to throw them out. 🙂
Stephanie says
I tried all those to remove stains too, and they didn't work. The only thing I've found that worked to remove stains is bleach, since, well, that's what it's suppose to do.
Free says
I saw once on Pinterest that they said to use alka seltzer. I have not tried it because all I have is orange flavored alka seltzers.
Urailak @LivingforGod says
I found this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-barnes/how-to-clean-tomato-sauce_b_1521201.html . Hope it's helpful! Or you might like this method better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slh7T0yrunY :).
Julie says
Thank you so much! I will have to give it a try. 🙂