Tips For Cleaning Metal Cutlery

Improvement

oi-Anwesha

By Anwesha Barari

Monday, December 5, 2011, 16:02

Cleaning cutlery, especially with Christmas knocking on the doors can be a very difficult task. You are so hassled about finishing all the 'bigger' aspects of your spring cleaning, you tend to leave your dirty metal cutlery for the last minute. With our busy lifestyles, the cutlery does not come out of the closets for anything other than special occasions. For these special occasions like Christmas and Thanksgiving or Diwali the tarnished silver polish on your cutlery needs special care.

Here are some of the best ways for cleaning your cutlery before laying out the festive dinner table.

Easy Tips For Cleaning Cutlery:

• Metal cutlery is expensive and exclusive in a world that is being taken over by plastics. Your special China cannot go without the cutlery that it deserves so start cleaning up at least a week before Christmas because in the end you'll be too busy to clean up thoroughly.

• The first thumb rule of cleaning cutlery is that you have to clean it as soon as possible after use. If your guest will leave after a while you can at least soak the spoons and forks in warm water. This is because once the food stains solidify on the metal plating it may erode the polish.

• Never wash silver cutlery with abrasive soaps because it is supposed to be cleaned in a different way. Wash it with warm water and then rub it with a piece of salted tamarind to get back that sparkling silver polish that caught your eye while buying it.

• If your metal cutlery has been spotted by ugly white hard water stains then there is a way out too. A little diluted corn starch powder can be used like a face pack for your cutlery. Wipe it off on drying and see how the complexion of your cutlery improves.

• White vinegar is great for removing the dullness from cutlery that has remained unused in your closet for years. That dullness of age can be removed by soaking the cutlery in a white vinegar overnight and washing off in the morning.

• It is best to keep cleaning your cutlery with olive oil every once in 2 weeks, at least once in a month if you can't manage time. This keeps the cutlery polished and in use.

• How you store cutlery also has a huge role to play in its staying clean. You must wrap your silverware in muslin cloths and store it in such a way that it does not touch any other metal or even each other.

• Never stow away the cutlery immediately after washing because if the water or even the vapor remains then it will make the metal rust. You can keep lime of chalk pieces in the closet where you store the cutlery to keep it fresh.

Use these cleaning tips to have your cutlery sparkling clean by the time you lay a festive dinner table.