Rust stains on your knives can be a fact of life when you’re too busy to do anything more than quickly rush them through the dishwasher. Fortunately, you don’t have to put up with this any longer with our quick trick to remove rust stains from knives, naturally!
Rust stains. They happen. I used to think I was just doing something wrong with my washing technique and the only real solution was to just hide those embarrassing knives if I ever had anyone in the kitchen helping me out. Recently, though I’ve realized that I don’t have to live this way! I decided to see if I could actually just remove rust stains from knives another way, since our new fancy-pants dishwasher doesn’t seem to be making them any better, and of course, the solution was so easy and something I should have taken the time to figure out years ago. Isn’t that always the way?
If you’ve got a little bit of shame in your game when it comes to your kitchen knives too, here’s what you need to do!
First, round out up all of your grossest knives.
A Natural Solution
Next, gather some basic supplies that you almost certainly already have in your kitchen: A cup, some lemon juice, and water.
Next, make a mixture of half warm water and half lemon juice in your cup, enough to cover the metal parts of your knives, and drop your knives in!
Set your favorite chicken timer to 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes is up, remove your knives from the lemon water. The rust spots should be really well-loosened by now. Most of mine came off really easily, like I could have almost just looked at them and they would have been gone. Depending on how tough your stains are, you can either use a cloth to wipe them away or one of these green scrubby things:
I used the green scrubby on some of the tougher spots and here’s how my knives turned out!
Watch it Work
Do you want to see this process in action? Check out our quick how to remove rust stains from knives video and see how well this really works!
If you’ve been having this most unpleasant issue, try the lemon juice trick before you go for any crazy commercial cleaners! It really works!
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Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.