The best ways to make scratched dinner plates look brand new

No matter how fancy your dinner plates are, scuffs from silverware are, over time, inevitable. And no matter how many times you scrub your dishes, the scuff marks persist.

But before you invest in a whole new set of dinner plates, it’s surprisingly easy to make your dishes look brand new again for very little money and all you need is one of these three products: baking soda, cream of tartar or Bar Keepers Friend.

It turns out you can buff away those marks with either of these three products, all of which can be cheaply purchased at most major supermarkets (if you don’t already have them lying around at home).

Cream of tartar and baking soda, which are both traditionally used in baking, are fantastic for buffing out very light scuff marks on dishes thanks to their gentle abrasiveness. The citric acid in cream of tartar makes for a great cleaning agent, while baking soda is a powerful natural cleaner because it’s a mild alkali (a type of chemical compound that’s used in cleaning products). 

But if your dinner plates are seriously scuffed up, you might want to go with Bar Keepers Friend since it’s a more heavy-duty cleaner.

So how does it work? Choose your product and sprinkle a generous amount over the surface of your dish. (Make sure the dinner plate is clean and dry to start). Then add a few drops of water and blend with your fingers to make a paste. Let the paste sit for a minute or two.

Then using circular motions scrub the scuffs out with a sponge or dishrag until they’re gone. Once your dinner plate looks good, wash the paste off with soap and water, wipe dry, and you’re done!

Have you used any of these products before? How do you buff out scratches on your dishes?