What Do You Scrub Your Pots With?

       One of the ways I save money in my kitchen is to make my cleaning products.  It wasn't all that long ago that I would stand in the the store examining every cleaning product and try to decide which one I needed to buy.  I now very rarely go on that aisle which saves me a lot of money.

    What I thought seemed impossible is really quite simple since you don't need to add fillers and other unnecessary chemicals to your cleaners.   With a few ingredients you can make most all of your everyday cleaners.  Not only is this easier on the budget, it is a healthier option for your family.  Best of all though is that it really does work.

Despite all this there was one cleaner that I continued to use since I hadn't found a better alternative.  That was my scouring powder, although it wasn't any ordinary cleanser.  I replaced my everyday cleanser with baking soda, but could not find a suitable replacement for my Barkeeper's Friend.  I just never found anything that cleaned and scrubbed as well as the Barkeeper's Friend.  I also would boost it with those steel wool soap pads.  Oh how I hated those, the soap being slimy and the soap pads rusting before they were all used up. 

   Then just recently I was in the .99cent store and spotted something I'd never tried before.  Some of you may laugh at me if you've always been using these,  just not too hard, please.  What I saw were little balls of coiled stainless steel metal.  These always seemed weird odd to me, but for the price I thought it would be worth trying.  So here it is many weeks later and am I a happy camper.  I not only don't need to use my Barkeeper's Friend, but these little things do not rust one little bit.  They do spread out a little, but so far it's working just fine for all my heavier dish washing .

I went back to the .99 cent store to see if there were others, and there were a bunch of them.  They all basically looked the same, some were just coiled a bit tighter.  I'll be testing them out over the next few weeks to see which ones I like the best.  Some of my criteria will be first that they are cheap.  They must be able to scrub the pots well with less effort than the slimy soap pads.  They also cannot rust, or have slivers of stainless steel entering my hands  I'll of course be testing them on pots and pans and my stove which seems to be perpetually dirty. 

There was only one drawback to these that I could see, and that's the fact that they aren't made in America.  I do try to buy local or at least in the United States as much as possible.  I will keep my eyes open on that but some items are just not obtainable here.

So if you are needing to try to get away from cleanser to try to get chemical cleaners out of your kitchen, or just want to save a few dollars go spend a dollar and try these out.  I'll be letting you all know which ones I like the best, or if it even matters.  Just remember, it needs to be stainless steel, do not buy the imitation scrubbers or you may find that they rust.