Knife marks on my Denby plate.
We are not the kind of people who have a best dinner service. We tend to have one and use it all the time*. About ten years ago, when our crockery was getting a bit tatty and it was becoming harder to replace broken items we decided to lash out on a Denby set, gradually building up the pieces over time.
I was disappointed to find that fairly soon some of the items were looking scratched and grey due to knife marks, especially the things we use every day such as the dinner plates. Some were so bad that I considered throwing out the plates and buying new ones. Instead I did a bit of internet research and tried various suggestions for removing them. Rubbing them with household cleaners such as Cif had no effect at all. Rubbing with a paste made of bicarbonate of soda lightened some of the marks with a lot of effort but in the end I gave up and decided to put up with the marks, occasionally apologising to visitors and pointing out that the plates were really cleaner than they looked!
If only I had known at the outset that what you really need
is this stuff.
BAR KEEPERS FRIEND – POWER CREAM.
Marks now gone after a gentle wipe.
I casually enquired at my nearest Lakeland store if they had any ideas and the young male assistant suggested this product. It worked!
In fact it worked beautifully. With just a blob of the cream and barely more than a gentle wipe with a damp cloth all the marks came off almost instantly. My Denby plates look brand new again.
It also removed more stubborn metal marks on plates and dishes caused by metal pet food bowls rubbing against them in the dishwasher. This did require a bit more rubbing but they also now look pristine.
There is a range of Bar Keepers Friend products so it’s important to choose the right one for this job. Of course the marks will return with use but it’s good to know that with one wipe they can be removed. Marvellous !!
*The truth is that we now have two more dinner services but I plead mitigating circumstances. The Denby is our everyday crockery from the house in the UK. We have an Ikea dinner service that came from our first house in France and then here. I also have my old Blue Denmark set from the 1980's which Nick disliked so it was boxed up and put away. After almost eighteen months in our "new" French house nearly everything is unpacked and I rediscovered it and put it lovingly in the sideboard, for occasional use. My cup runneth over!
Of course we still have a small house in the UK and that has a small dinner service too, the one that was my mum's, also bought in the 80's and 90's when she felt she could afford to replace her old, chipped and cracked hotch potch of cups, plates an saucers. I cherish that one more than any.
The Wikipedia entry is interesting. If you run out presumably you can rub your crockery with rhubarb leaves.
ReplyDeleteRhubarb leaves were not one of the suggestions when I Googled the problem! I might give it a try, just for the fun of it, that's if my rhubarb plant grows at all his year.
DeleteWell, if the active ingredient in Bar Keeper's Friend is oxalic acid, I don't see why rhubarb leaves wouldn't work (since their oxalic acid content is why you can't eat them).
DeleteI've long been a fan of the old BKF, although I've never used it on my Denby plates before. I can confirm it works so thanks for that. (Although my knives are so cheap and soft they don't often leave marks.) Sadly in recent years the BKF packaging has been updated and the retro drawing of the bar keeper has disappeared from the label. Is nothing sacred?
ReplyDelete