Blog Categories +
Cleaning|cleaning find|Kitchen Month
Kitchen Month – How to Get Rid of Marks on Your Dishes
February 18, 2013
It’s normal – if you use silverware on ceramic dishes you will see little gray marks and scratches appear over time on your dishware. If you have small scratches, you can try water, dish soap and a little baking soda. If you meet a little resistance, I recommend Bon Ami or Bar Keeper’s Friend. Both cleansers are safe/meant for cookware – so feel free to scrub away. (Check out this post where I show you how to use these cleansers to scrub your sink!)
Wet the dish and a cloth and apply the powder or cream – rub in a circular motion. You’ll need to use a little elbow grease, but the marks will come up easily in a minute or so.
Wash the cleanser off the plates and run them through your dishwasher. Look at the ‘brand new’ dishes!
Have you tried to remove the gray marks on your dishes? What has/hasn’t worked for you?
Click here to see all the posts in this series.
sandra Says...
would this work for an old porcelin sink as well?
Becky Says...
Post authorIt would work beautifully!
Bekki Says...
I need to do this with my yellow fiesta ware. The lighter colors show up so fast! Thanks for the tip.
Karen Says...
I tried this with my Lagostina pot cleaner and it worked like a charm. Bekki….I have Fiesta ware as well, and it worked perfectly on the yellow, which really does show the scratches more.
Elizabeth Says...
Thank you, this is a great tip! Love using bar keeper’s friend for my stainless steel, never thought about this!!
Karla Says...
Bar Keepers Friend powder works AMAZINGLY on your rusty water stained tub, sink, and shower walls as well! Little scrubbing needed too!
Butterfly 212 Says...
A scrub with Baking soda works really well too. It really cleans anything melamine like the inside of kitchen cabinets.
Karen Says...
I love the jars on your counter!! The one is dishwasher soap, what is in the other one??? =D
lynda Says...
Growing up we regularly had days set aside to clean dishes and such to this degree, particularly before Thanksgiving. I use baking soda, especially with coffee cups and glasses. It really bugs me to see restaurants letting their stained dishes be served without going through this. This is particularly true with coffee shops and cafes that serve a lot of coffee and tea.
Fran Says...
I use Bon Ami to clean those kind of marks off my light colored porcelain sink.
missy Says...
are those homemade dishwashing pellets in the jar by your bar towels? are they wrapped in plastic baggies?
Linda Says...
Great tip! Can you get these products in Canada? I have seen Bon Ami in a spray but I thought that was for windows and counters. I have never seen the Bar Keepers friend products.
Jennifer W Says...
Linda, in Canada at Home Hardware, but I have only seen the powder form.
Trish Says...
If you have a good cookware store in your area you can get the soft cleaner too.
kelly thompson Says...
i thought I had bad dishes that were getting scratched down to the coating or something so I donated the ones with the marks- uh oh! should have googled it first- now i know- thanks for helping me keep my current plates!
Kelli H Says...
Girl you are a lifesaver this is perfect I have gotten new dishes latley becuase I thought they were ruined now Im going to have to get them back from Grandmaw because we all know when sometime trys to throw something away grandmaw keeps it. I wonder if that would be considered wrong? Hmmm
Mallory Says...
This is unrelated to this post but can you tell me where you cleaning buckets are from?! The tan/cream ones with two handles?! Thanks!
pegg macko Says...
I have a cleaning client that has little scratches like this on his white glass cooktop. Do you think that this might work on that. I’ve used lots of cooktop cleaner and windex but they haven’t worked. Thanks for any help you can give us!
Emily Says...
Thanks for posting this!! I just bought some fiestaware colors I didn’t have from a local antique dealer and the apricot colored ones had some of these scratches. I have about 4 rose ones with the same scratch marks. Going to try this out sometime this weekend.
Jenn Says...
I can’t wait to try this! My dishes totally look like this!
sara Says...
In my apt, the dishwasher is old and has rusty spots and it got on my Corelle dishes where the prongs were touching during a cycle. I just used a baking soda and water paste to get the spots off. Thank goodness!
Kelley Says...
This is a great tip! Another way I have found to get rid of utensil marks or hard to remove stains is to use a metal polish called Wenol. I use the product that comes in the red tube. It works well on glassware as well.
Joycekk Says...
The marks also come off if you use Mr. Clean (or other brand) eraser.
Trish Says...
I work in a dinnerware store and this is a very common thing. It should be noted that any flatware will leave this on the dishes,whether it’s a high end brand or not. With our particular brand that we sell, the glaze is very tough and often people see the marks sooner than most because the metal deposits are very soft. We recommend this cleaner all the time. Great article!
Jen Says...
I tried baking soda on several yellow Fiestaware plates, which were extremely scuffed. In fact, they had nearly solid gray centers. Thinking they were beyond repair, I took a chance and used my glass stove top cleaner. Squirted some on, used a medium scrubbing pad (same one I use on stove top) and it worked without any damage to the dishes. I had such good luck, I tried it on one of my vintage restaurant plates that had the same problem. Again, like new. There might be some other brands that couldn’t take it, but my vintage Homer Laughlin did fine.