3 Simple Ingredients That Will Shine Up Your Dirty Sink, According to TikTok

A dirty sink can be one of the most frustrating things to clean in your home. If you happen to have an older porcelain sink (like I do), no amount of scrubbing will get it to sparkle when it starts to look less than pristine. 

There are plenty of products that promise to make your kitchen and bathroom look good as new, but many contain harsh chemicals or abrasives that aren’t very good for some surfaces or the environment. 

However, there’s an all-natural solution to brighten up your basin that — thanks to TikTok — is now making its way into the homes of a whole new generation. And it’s easy to whip up with three common ingredients you likely already have on hand.

In a video that has 1.1 million likes, TikTok user Muna, otherwise known as @my_styled_living, uses a combo of salt, baking soda, and rosemary oil to shine up her kitchen sink.

Like most of us, I was familiar with some variety of this DIY cleaner concoction. But as a person who doesn’t like to use a lot of elbow grease, I’ve always opted to buy organic cleaners, which I thought would have a little more power than one from homemade ingredients. 

So when I happened to run out of my favorite, all-natural, pink-hued cleaning paste (also popular on TikTok) I decided to reach into my pantry and put this three-ingredient cleaner to the test on my sink.

Baking soda and salt are two common household ingredients that are often used in DIY cleaners. Together, they make a powerful cleaning duo that’s an effective way to cleanse your sink without harsh chemicals.

Baking soda has been used since ancient times as a natural cleaner and added to other products (such as toothpaste) to boost their results. It’s a cheap, non-toxic, mild alkali that deodorizes and breaks down tough stains while being gentle on surfaces. 

Salt is a great abrasive and helps to scrub away dirt and grime. It’s safe for most surfaces, including your kitchen sink. Just avoid using iodized salt in your mix since it can strip the protective coating from stainless steel.

If you’re just looking for just a basic all-purpose cleaning product, then these two ingredients are technically all you need. 

However, that’s where the “Y” in this DIY cleanser comes into play, you can easily personalize this mix to fit your scent preference, cleaning purpose, or what you have to work with inside your pantry. 

Instead of using rosemary oil (which I didn’t have on hand) like the video, I decided to use lemon juice (which I did have) for extra cleaning power and antibacterial properties. 

Together the concoction helped gently remove stains from the surface without harsh scrubbing. Once I mixed it, I sprinkled in a spoonful of fresh lavender to add an extra layer of fragrance. 

In an empty jar, I added two tablespoons of baking soda, two teaspoons of salt, the juice of one lemon, and a little bit of lemon zest. I then roughly mixed it together to create a paste.

I decided to focus on my bathroom sink for this project. Using a cleaning cloth to scrub the mixture into the sink, I targeted specifically dirty areas. I allowed it to sit for about 10 minutes, and then I used a damp cloth to gently wipe the cleanser away. 

I had expected this cleanser to work to some extent, but I was honestly surprised at how effective it was with such minimal effort. 

With just that one quick rinsing, I immediately noticed my sink looked (and smelled) brighter. Thanks to the lemon’s citric acid and the natural abrasiveness of the baking soda, it managed to remove most of the buildup and left the sink with a strong but not overpowering citrus scent. It even had a freshly-cleaned gleam. 

In the end, this three-ingredient cleaner turned out to be an affordable, accessible, and powerful solution to get my sink back into shape. So, instead of washing my money down the drain on store-bought natural cleaners, I made a couple of larger batches in a few different scents. These are now my everyday cleaners and an all-organic reinforcement for those deep scrubs!

Have you made your own cleaning scrub? Tell us about your mixture in the comments below.