There are many different ways to clean and polish a stainless steel sink. Some require purchasing specialized products, while others rely more on household materials and DIY skills.
While I wouldn’t recommend resorting to off-the-shelf, store-bought solutions like Bar Keepers Friend or Weiman’s Stainless Steel Sink Cleaner, I did some experiments to see if these cheaper methods would work — and I had some success. It turns out that all you need to clean your stainless steel sink is a melamine sponge and some baking soda.
Since I was renting, my sink, like everything else in the place, was used—and it showed. It had some serious scratches, evidence of years of use cleaning up stovetop messes I could only imagine. A big part of cleaning stainless steel is sanding out small scratches, so the internet is full of advice to use abrasives or other granular cleaners. My cleaner of choice was baking soda.
Next, I had to choose my cleaning tools. Common sense tells us that using a lemon wedge to remove stains is fine, but in my experience, using lemon to remove stains often backfires. I chose the lemon-flavored SOS steel wool ball, and it was a good choice.
The first step in cleaning your sink is to take out the dishes and wipe off any visible residue. The sink was really dirty because I had just washed a bunch of dishes, so I pulled out the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Ultra Foamy and wiped down every inch of the sink.
Next, I sprinkled some regular baking soda into the sink. It’s coarse but soft, making it ideal for removing minor scratches and polishing stainless steel. I rubbed the baking soda off with a magic eraser, then rinsed it out and checked to see if there were any more serious scratches or stains. Afterwards, I gently rubbed the stains with an SOS polishing pad and noticed a slight improvement. While deeper scratches are difficult to remove by hand, a light buffing made a noticeable difference.
I then rinsed the sink again and dried it with a soft cloth, then applied a thin layer of baby oil as a cheap but effective polish.
Overall, I am very pleased with this inexpensive, low-effort cleaner. If you want to tackle tougher stains, you may want to consider an abrasive cleaner like Bar Keepers Friend, but considering I only deep clean my sink once a month, it’s hard to justify buying this cleaner. Baking soda works great for polishing and brightening my stainless steel sink, and it doesn’t cost me much since I’m using products I already have on hand.
Lindsay Ellefson is Lifehacker’s Coverage Editor. She currently covers learning, productivity, home organization, and digital technology, and mentors freelance writers on sex and relationships. Before joining Lifehacker, she spent most of her time covering media and politics for Us Weekly, CNN, The Daily Dot, Mashable, Glamour, and InStyle. In recent years, her freelance work has focused on drug use and the overdose crisis; her writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, Wired, The New Republic, The Daily Beast, and more. Her reporting for BuzzFeed News won the 2022 U.S. News Online Award for Best Fake News Exposure.
In addition to her journalism work, Lindsay recently graduated from New York University’s School of Global Public Health with a Master of Public Health. She previously worked for the Opioid Policy Institute’s Coverage of Addiction Project, studying media bias in reporting on drug use. She is also a certified Schwinn Spinning Instructor and won the 2023 Dunkin’ Donuts Butter Cup Contest, earning her a year of free coffee. Lindsay currently lives in New York City, NY.
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