Folks, all you really need is white vinegar (and love) to clean just about anything. Recently, I found that it even cleans tarnished brass! I have a lovely brass tabletop tray that my grandfather brought back from India over 60 years ago. When my parents moved they gave it me. I had always loved it and was excited to bring it into my home but at first I didn’t know where to put it. As a result, it sat for many years in storage. One day, I found the perfect place, but discovered it was terribly tarnished along with some stains. It had at least 15 years of build up. In the past, I had used ketchup on tarnished brass, but the other items were no where as large as this tray and I would have needed a lot of ketchup, and having only organic ketchup in the house, I decided to looked for an alternative.

I started to think about what was in the ketchup that took off the tarnish ~ it was acid. Then it occurred to me, WHITE VINEGAR is acidic. So, I took the tray outside and poured some white vinegar onto it ~ Voilà ~ no more tarnish. Unfortunately, some of the stains remained but wow, what a difference and it was so easy, no scrubbing or rubbing. It was crazy easy.

Here’s another reason to always have white vinegar in the house. I do not know what I would do without it.

Please note that the “before” picture is of the back, because I forgot to take a picture of the front when I started the cleaning process.