Pinterest Fact or Fiction: Foil Bananas

So I saw this thing on pinterest that if you put foil on the tops of your bananas, it prevents them from ripening too fast.

I thought this was an easy enough thing to test out so I wrapped our bananas when I got home from the store.

 Note: the yellow banana in the above photo is one week old for a reference point.

Here is what is left after a week from the same bunch of bananas from the above photo.

They had quite a bit less black spots. The bananas themselves had no mushy spots either.

This made me think that this was a pinterest Fact.

Until the next week....
At 5 days the remaining bananas had mush spots and were just as black as ever.
Then the same thing happened the following week.

Maybe we got a really good bunch of bananas that first week, or a really bum bunch the following week. 

If this was something that really prevented the bananas from getting over ripe then it should work every time. It's for that reason that I'm calling this one a pinterest fiction.

Pinterest Fact or Fiction: Oven Door

Today we are going to discus the tip of Cleaning the oven door from DIY Home Sweet Home.

The trick is to make a baking soda paste, and apply it to your oven door.  Then you let the baking soda marinate for 20 min.  When you scrub the stuff off, Shazam!  The oven door is magically super sparkly clean.

Let's take a look at my oven door before I started: 

Ew.

Notice my little helper at the bottom left hand portion of the photo.

Apparently, open ovens, particularly those coated in baking soda are fascinating to little black cats.  Playing keep away from the oven for 20 min is not my idea of good times.

Now after I had all that fun, I got to scrub the gunk off the door.

Aaaaaand then the oven door looked like this:

Hmm.

I included the paper towels I used to clean the oven in the photo 1.) so you could see that some of the dirt DID actually come off, and 2.) so I could tell the before and after photos apart in my camera.

Let's do a side by side comparison:

People swear this works.  It didn't work on my industrial strength super Hulking dirt. 

I'm marking this one down as Pinterest Fiction.

From now on I'll just stick with the self cleaning mode on the oven. 

Pinterest Fact or Fiction: A Clean Washer

I was doing laundry the other day, and being a short person, I frequently have to stick my head in the washing machine to grab that lone pesky straggler sock.  This time I was met with a knock down drag out nasty funk of a smell.

Apparently, washing machines need to be cleaned.

How did I not know this?

They clean your clothes so why should they be dirty?  Then again, you clean your body in the shower and the tub and shower can get pretty disgusting as well.

So I set myself to finding a cure for the stinky situation. My trusty old pinterest search found me many a tips and tricks on how to clean the washing machine.  I chose the directions for Cleaning a top loading washer from DIY Naturally.

All you need is 4 cups of vinegar, 1/2 c baking soda, dishrag and a bit of elbow grease.  I had a hard time getting into some of the nooks and crannies so I used Mrblocko's toothbrush to get out all the gunk from the hard to reach places.

No.  Not really.   I just like to throw stuff like that in my posts just to make sure he is reading them.

I did have to use a toothbrush, just not Mrblocko's.

What you'll need to do is:
1. Fill your washer with HOT water.
2. Add the vinegar and let it agitate for a minute.
3. Add the baking soda and let that shimmy itself in the mix for another minute.
4.  Let this stuff sit for 30-60 min.  (Just leave the lid open to make sure the washer doesn't continue onto the spin cycle.)
5.  Scrub the parts you can get with the rag/toothbrush and liquid in the basin until you can't see anymore of the filth.
6.  Let the washer complete it's wash cycle.
7. Voila! You've got a mean clean washin' machine!

 Anyhow.  Above is the before picture. 

I don't know if you can see all the gunk on the plastic part on top of the basin.  Ten years of gunk and filth.

Now here is the after:

No more grodies.  AND no more smell. 

Success! 

Mark this one down as a pinterest FACT!

Hardwater Stains . . . Revisited

Since the vinegar and paper towel trick worked so well on my kitchen faucet, I thought I'd test it out on my dishwasher.

Here is the before:

And the after:

 

What a disappointment. I was hoping for the same results I had with the sink. The vinegar did take off some of the hard water, but not nearly enough to make me happy.

I left the vinegar on for the same time that I did with the sink too.

Oh well. Off to find a new solution for the dishwasher I guess.

Pinterest fact or fiction 6: Armpit stains

Normally, I'm not a sweater. My m.o. is to get hot, clammy and then pass out. You can imagine my surprise when I started my job as a crossing guard and I came home dripping with sweat. I was happy to be sweating because it meant that I wasn't passed out in the middle of the street from heat exhaustion.

What I wasn't too happy about was what the sweat did to my shirt.

Ew!  Nasty yellow armpit stains.

So unlady like!

A pin from One good thing by Jillee claims that if you take one part Dawn dish soap, and two parts hydrogen peroxide, with a sprinkle of baking soda, all your yellow armpit woes will be vanquished.

So I tried it.

The stain is lighter, but still there.  I'd say it's not exactly the miracle it claimed to be.

Pinterest fact or fiction 5: cleaning nasty pans

I know I'm not the only one out there who has a nasty looking pan. You know the one I'm talking about. The one that no matter how hard you scrub, it just won't come clean.

The one that looks something like this:

Eeeeew!

What is that stuff?!  Not even Mrblocko can get that crud off.

You know I was totally amazed when I saw a pin from One Good  Thing by Jillee that claimed you could get a dirty pan like that clean with no scrubbing.  No Scrubbing?  Count me in.

She claims all you need to do is sprinkle on baking soda, then hydrogen peroxide, then some more baking soda.  I did just that and let the mixture sit for three hours. 

This was my end result:

It's not exactly clean, but it is clean-er.

You can even see the start of some silver metallic color peeking out at the bottom.

So it did work...sort of.

In this tip's defense, when I used my fingers to rub off the baking soda/peroxide, it changed from white to brown.  Maybe if I repeat this process a few more times the pan will get even cleaner.

Pinterest Fact or Fiction: episode 3

I'm always very curious when I hear about these amazing super cleaning tips and tricks on Pinterest.  Sometimes they just seem too good to be true.

 I tried the DIY drain unclogger.  That was a mega fail.  Then again, it WAS a mega drain blockage that the plumber had to cut away part of the pipe to remove.  I have heard others try this vinegar and baking soda technique with very little success.  So I'm going to call that one a pinterest myth.

Then I tried the DIY silver jewelry cleaner.  Oh and yay verily, it rocked mine little world.  There's nothing like being able to wear your favorite jewelry you thought was ruined.  A huge mega success if there ever was one.

As I currently have a 50/50 success rate, I figured giving the stainless steal de-gunker tip from Tales and Tips from A Real-Life Housewife was worth a shot.  The tip is to take a few tablespoons of Cream of Tartar and mix it with a few drops of water to make a paste.  Then you just scrub away.

Here is what I had to work with:

One nasty gross looking tea kettle.  That oily gunk wouldn't come off even with extra elbow grease from Mrblocko.   EW!

Here is the after:

Well...the cream of tartar paste DID get the oily gunk off.  But it did nothing for what I guess is rust?

I'd have to say this was a pinterest fact.  The tip didn't say anything about rusty stains, just greasy ones. 

Now all I have to do is figure out how to get rid of the rust on the tea kettle!  Please let me know your suggestions.  I love this kettle and am sick of how gross it looks!