The First Thing You Should Do with a New Box of Baking Soda

When we write first-thing pieces, the idea is to harness the power of association. We want to take advantage of this moment in time to remind us to do something that we might otherwise never get around to doing. We want to use this instance of replacing some pantry staple to trigger something useful, like using a cotton ball doused in vanilla to make the frigdge smell nice or finally descaling the kitchen faucet.

For me, this is the case with window-track cleaning, which I personally decided to tackle each time I break open a new roll of paper towels. Rather than devoting the better part of a Saturday to scrubbing all my window tracks, I commit to cleaning one or two with the first several paper towels from a new roll. Eventually they all get cleaned and my soul isn’t completely drained in the process.

This is also the case when it comes to cleaning marks from my dishes. The trigger is a new box of baking soda.

Those fine lines in your dinnerware that you may bemoan, but may also have accepted? They probably aren’t permanent. They’re probably the result of scraping silverware across your plates. In other words, the marks are scuffs that can be polished off — and pretty easily — with baking soda. Here’s how:

When you open a new box of baking soda, take a tablespoon or so and use it to make a thick paste with water. Grab your scuffed plates and use a rag and the baking soda paste to buff them out. And over time, with just a little bit of exertion and a few minutes of time here and there, they’ll all be scuff-free.