If you’ve ever stored leftovers like pasta or curry in a plastic container, you may notice that no amount of washing up after can remove the orange or red stains from the inside. Despite scrubbing, these marks are stubborn but that doesn’t mean you should throw the container away. One expert hack that requires no scrubbing and no specialist products has gone viral for its effectiveness at restoring your box back to its original, non-stained, condition.
A social media influencer, Pressie, made a video on the hack, which went viral, garnering over 1.3 million TikTok likes and thousands of comments from shocked viewers. She explains that all you need to remove the discolouration from the plastic is water, dish soap, and a paper towel.
To begin, Pressie fills up the container with a little bit of water and some squirts of dish soap. She then adds the paper towel and closes the lid.
She explains: “Put the lid on and literally just shake it, shake it vigorously .. the paper towel mixed with the soap and water, it just takes away all the stains.”
Another method of removing sauce stains from plastic food storage boxes uses laundry detergent. Ann Russell, a popular cleaning influencer, says that you simply need to fill your sink with water, add a few tablespoons of laundry detergent, and leave the affected items to soak.
But what happens when you get sauce stains on clothing? A dry cleaner, known to his 774,000 TikTok followers as Clean Freakz, explains that the first thing you should do if you spill tomato sauce on your clothes is to wipe away as much as possible.
Next, you should mix together some warm water with a few drops of dish soap and work it into the affected area.
You should then use an enzymatic stain remover to cover the area – the expert says that amylase is the ingredient you should be looking for, as this “breaks down the sugars in the tomato sauce”.
To finish, you should wash as recommended. He adds: “If the stain is still there, spray with hydrogen peroxide and air dry inside.” Soaking in hot water and powdered oxygen bleach overnight before rewashing the next day should also work, the dry cleaner tells followers.
Experts at The Kitchn also suggest using baking soda and water to remove stains. They explain how you can add one-to-two tablespoons of the substance to the bottom of the affected container with some water to create a paste.
This should be spread all over and left to sit for 30 minutes – after which you can wipe the paste off with a damp cloth and rinse with water and soap.
