Good Idea Friday - Cleaning your Whiteboards

I was honestly highly skeptical about this tip. I'm in the middle of preparing for a yard sale this week, and I stumbled acrossed a cute whiteboard that used to be in my kids' playroom. The problem? It had been sitting in the basement for over a year covered in ink. Yikes. So I did what I always do - I busted out my trusty  melamine sponge (Magic eraser). That worked ok, but the board itself seemed stain from the ink. So I took it into the bathroom and applied a thick paste of bleach gel. A day later, and it was still stained. 

So I turned to pinterest. I knew I had seen a post before on how to clean whiteboards, but I assumed they all offered the same advice I had just tried. Until I found this post from over at the blog Milehimama. 

Her suggestions? Toothpaste. Yes, cheap, old school toothpaste. A similar tip to my post on how to clean your headlights I wrote about. But can it do the work my melamine sponge couldn't? I was highly skeptical. So I tried it on half the board and sure enough it worked! Knowing then that it was the grit of the paste and not the toothpaste itself, I tried a cup of baking soda with a wet cloth on the other half, and it worked just as well. So next time you're staring down a not so whiteboard and thinking it's a lost cause, break out the baking soda or toothpaste and give it a try. 

Good Idea Friday - Toothpaste on Your HeadLights

"How to Clean Your Car Headlights-with toothpaste"

This post is for a fan who asked how true this was. 

(Have questions or submissions? Post it on our facebook page!) 

So, can toothpaste of all things really clean your car's headlamps? Yes. Oddly enough. However there are a lot of things that can, so I'll explain how and why it works. Things like this often times will stress that it must be toothpaste, not the more modern gel styles of toothpaste. Why? Because more traditional toothpastes tend to have a higher grit content - if you put some on your fingers and rub them together, you can feel the difference between toothpaste and tooth gel. The gel has a much smoother gel like consistency. It's the grit of the old fashion toothpaste (bonus points if it's something with baking soda) that is what is really cleaning the headlamps. 

You can get the same effect using a dozen different things from around the house - a water and baking soda mix, a magic eraser, Bon Ami cleaner, etc. The goal is to cut through the grim and oil and dirt, which ultimately needs something with a bit of texture to clean away but not enough to scratch the glass of the light. This works well for a lot of things that need a little extra cleaning help - from your oil splattered toaster to the top of your cookstove to the rubber white soles of your converse shoes. 

So what do you think? Good idea? In a pinch I'd use it, but I'm sticking with my tried and loved melamine sponge (aka Magic Eraser) for this personally. I don't think my headlights care if they are minty fresh or not. 

Magic Toilet Cleaner

Magic Eraser uses... did you know you can cut a piece off and float it in your toilet overnight and voila! no more toilet ring! The website has a list of about 100 uses!

Magic Erasers.. they clean like magic. I honestly love these things and use them in place of typical sponges on most everything. (Though I personally prefer the generics.)

But will they be so magical as to do the work for you? 

No. No they won't. You can't just cut up a sponge, toss it in the toilet, and expect to wake up to having the bowl cleaned for you magically over night. The way these sponges work are that they are basically like super fine sandpaper (which is why they tell you never to use on skin. Though I'm surprised I haven't seen it posted a great DIY micro dermabrasion facial on pinterest yet.) So you actually need to scrub with these. Plus you still need to fish that out of your toilet come morning anyways so wouldn't it be easier just to clean it the old fashion way?

Honestly if you keep your toilet fairly clean then in a pinch you can add anything from your usual bowl cleaner, bleach, or even baking soda and let it sit over night and then just flush in the morning to get rid of the ring.  I've also read where people have had good results with the old 3rd grade science fun of mixing equal parts baking soda and vinegar to clean with out scrubbing. However if you have hard water or mineral build up that isn't responding to the usual cleaner and brush it's best to slap on the industrial rubber gloves, grab a pumice stone and get scrubbing.