My granite chopping board was left with an oil stain, so I tried 59p natural cleaning hack to attempt to remove the stain.
At Christmas, I received a granite chopping board to replace my trusty old plastic ones that had served me faithfully for more than 10 years. My mum has a marble board that sits permanently in her kitchen counter, and it’s far more practical to use and maintain.
So I finally acquired one to complement my relatively new kitchen, choosing a timeless grey granite speckled design. I hadn’t even owned the chopping board for a full month when catastrophe struck in the most unsightly way.
Following a relaxing evening with a mate, during which I’d been grafting away preparing a homemade pie for pudding, I discovered the board had been stained and marked by grease that had leaked from underneath the pie dish.
My pristine chopping board now bears permanent battle scars from that delicious dessert, leaving a patchy circular mark that haunts me every time I glance at it. Regardless of how vigorously I scrubbed or how much fairy liquid I deployed, the crescent-shaped blemish remained stubbornly put.
My embarrassment intensified when my mother popped round and spotted the mark herself. The board remains hygienic; it’s more my ego that’s taken a battering.
Naturally, I turned to Google for solutions, which quickly highlighted baking soda as an effective method for extracting and reducing oil marks from these stone surfaces, alongside a dash of washing-up liquid for extra power.
The technique involves combining the baking soda, washing-up liquid, and a drop of water to create a paste. The mixture is then spread onto the mark, covered or sealed with cling film, and left overnight. The paste is meant to extract the oil from the blemishes.
Certain suggestions recommend adding acetone or hydrogen peroxide to the mixture, but I was short on time. I also didn’t want to gamble with using an acidic solution on the chopping board, worried it might worsen the situation.
Following 24 hours, the paste seemed to have penetrated the marble, so the outcome remained hidden until it had completely dried. There was a momentary flutter of worry when I noticed the paste’s… liquid had expanded.
Warning bells rang in my head when I spotted another equally dark and considerably larger mark from the paste. Only the passage of time would reveal whether the baking soda had worked.
Allowing the chopping board to dry naturally, my dreams of a miraculous stain disappearance were crushed. The mark had lightened marginally, but remained far too visible for my satisfaction.
Baking soda had let me down yet again, leaving me wondering whether all these cleaning and household tricks you witness people attempting are genuinely worthwhile. Maybe the mixture required more time to work on the stain, or perhaps chemical help is truly necessary?
What I can say is that baking soda for cleaning chopping boards doesn’t deliver the impressive results I was promised it would. This was an absolute and total disaster.
A word of caution: avoid placing pies on granite or marble worktops. Unfortunately, my chopping board remains marked, though possibly not permanently. With any luck, others won’t spot the stain as readily as I do….
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