Cleaning Experiment

Today I conducted a cleaning experiment. My sheet pans are gross. Every Christmas I buy myself new ones and pitch the old ones. But, I discovered this blog post on Pinterest and decided to give it a shot. I went back and figured out what her "miracle cleaner" was. It's 1/4 cup baking soda and hydrogen peroxide mixed to a paste. So I tried it.

Yucky sheet pan

I first tried the baking soda and hydrogen peroxide. I always have a giant thing of baking soda for laundry and you can't have too much hydrogen peroxide around with two rambunctious boys. I used gloves because I cut my finger on the cabinet yesterday (yes, I'm a klutz) and you never know what cleaners will do to your skin.

This is the sheet pan after I cleaned it. There is an improvement, but not the "miracle cleaner" I was hoping for. I scrubbed with a sponge and brush too.

So then I decided to try out her suggestion of Tea Tree Oil and Castile soap. She mentioned Dr. Bronner's soap, but I could only find Kirk's at the store. Let me tell you, both smell strong! And it was $10 for this tiny bottle of tea tree oil, so I was eager for it to work.

Not so much. Still an improvement, but not the clean that I was looking for, or that she shows in her photos. I scrubbed this one with a sponge and brush too.

My last attempt was one of my own ideas. My friend, Vicki, gave me some homemade laundry soap in November. I haven't tried it on laundry yet (sorry!), but saw it sitting there and decided why not? I sprinkled some on and scrubbed again.

In my opinion, this worked the best. I could actually see the gunk coming off as I was scrubbing. But, still not a miracle cleaner. 

So, after all that scrubbing, I decided I'm not sure it's worth all that elbow grease to clean these pans. I think I'll stick to get new ones every year and try covering these with fabric or paper to make magnetic boards for the boys. (another Pinterest idea!) That way I'm still going green, which is what this was all about!