I Just Discovered a Brilliant Way to Make Your Kitchen Sink Look Amazingly Clean for Just $5 (It’s a Game-Changer!)

I’ve always kind of prided myself on how clean I keep my kitchen sink. After all, scrubbing it every night is part of my identity, passed down to me by my mother and carried on into the next generation as I teach my own kids the same routine. I’ve also discovered Hope’s Perfect Sink Polish, which makes my sink shinier than ever, and I regularly soak the drain flange in bleach when I deep-clean. I honestly didn’t realize there was anything more I could do to make my sink cleaner. But there’s always more to learn. 

Brandon Pleshek of Clean That Up is a professional (third-generation) janitor and divulges his expert tips on his social media channels. I love devouring his videos and picking up tips and tricks, so recently when I saw one of his sink-cleaning videos, I realized I’d been missing a major step in my sink cleaning routine: degreasing the sink before doing my regular scrubbing. 

As Pleshek explains, after he clears the sink area of anything that’s stored near or in it, he rinses the sink with some water to flush any big pieces of lingering food down the drain. Next, he degreases the sink. This is the step I’ve been unknowingly skipping, much to the detriment of my sink’s overall cleanliness and appearance. “The first cleaner I like to use,” Pleshek says, “is Dawn Powerwash, [which] does an amazing job of degreasing and removing any sort of food that might be left on the sink itself.” After spraying the Powerwash, he scrubs the sink before using Bar Keepers Friend (just like I do).

As soon as I saw this, I knew that I needed to add the degreasing step to my nightly sink-cleaning routine. I’ve noticed that even with my Bar Keepers Friend scrub-down, sometimes my sink looks cloudy and not quite as sparkling as I’d like, but I’ve never known why. In addition, I’ve also encountered really stubborn food bits that remain stuck to the sink even after scrubbing with a powdered cleanser.

It makes sense that a degreaser like Dawn would solve these problems. Just like it does on dishes and cookware, Dawn penetrates food particles, making them easy to lift from surfaces. In addition, the properties in Dawn cut through grease and melt it from surfaces. Using a degreaser before I scrub makes my scrubbing more effective than ever; I’ll be able to scour the small grooves and hard water stains that the powdered cleanser is meant to deal with without product and energy being wasted on grime that should have been tackled with an appropriate product beforehand. Let the punishment fit the crime, as they say.

By using this stepped technique of degreasing before I scrub, my sink is actually shiny in the end, with no cloudy grease residue or, over time, buildup. I’m reminded again that different types of products have different purposes and that I always, always, have more to learn. In the meantime, my sink is as clean as it’s been since the day we installed it. 

Buy: Dawn Platinum Powerwash Dish Spray, $4.69

This post originally appeared on The Kitchn. See it there: I Just Discovered the Most Brilliant Way to Make Your Kitchen Sink Look Amazingly Clean for Just $5 (It’s a Game-Changer!)