I'm a barkeeper

I must be a barkeeper, because barkeepers Friend is my new good friend.

I have been having a lot of trouble getting the discolored areas out of the tubs from our iron filled well water. I have tried disinfectant wipes (ha - only in my dreams would something so easy actually work!) and Soft Scrub (a little better but not very effective), a lot of elbow grease with a scrub brush and SS (wore out the scrub brush and got rid of the worst of the stains). Still, not the sparkling clean tubs that were here when we moved in. Either the people before us didn't shower, or SHE knew a trick I didn't.

So, drawing on my experience working at a library and covering in the reference department, I did what works best - start asking people who know. Well, actually, I only ended up asking Chris because as it turns out, she had the answer that led me to my answer - "Comet". OK, a step more aggressive from SS. A little scary on fiberglass, but with the attitude I learned from my sister (If it's already ruined, you might as well try something radical - practical experience from when she melted a plastic spoon onto a electric coil stove burner) I went to my cleaning supplies and grabbed the Comet. Only it turns out it wasn't Comet, it was barkeeper's Friend, a cleaner I got a couple years ago to clean my glass top range.

Enter the magic....

I used this stuff with a damp scrub brush and a wet tub and the stains came out. Even more impressive - the stained nickel drain plugs came clean. SS had never even touched those and I had written them off as stained for good. AND it took the yellow tinge out of the porcelain bathroom sink and the yellow off that metal drain.

When something looks dirty it feels dirty, no matter how much you've scoured it. So it was a happy ending. And calling myself a barkeeper sounds a lot cooler than saying I finally got my grubby tubs clean.