Magic Erasers + teaware.

Cool! I had never thought of it before. They actually only work okay on my walls, which are scuffed a bit from moving mishaps (tiny condo!), so I wasn’t yet impressed by them.

I agree; shiny appliances are the best! Having the Breville restored to its original glory is so thrilling.

I clean my breville pretty regularly, because I don’t want to take the chance that any left over scents or flavors might affect future pots of tea. I usually alternate with cleaning procedures, one week, I’ll squeeze a lemon in a full pot, chop up the peel and put the whole thing in for a good long brew of 10 minutes and let it sit overnight, then rinse well in the morning. The next week, I’ll use distilled vinegar. But neither of these things will remove the discoloring that seems to build up on the previously shiny parts, so I take out a magic eraser for these (don’t you love the dollar store?) and I find that they do a marvelous job at restoring the shiny.

Huh! Well, Wikipedia’s article on melamine seems to say that it is combined with formaldehyde to make the foam.

Yikes! Thanks for pointing out this might not be okay. I will definitely not be using them again. Back to cream of tartar. :(

Yep, and melamine is definitely not okay either. I can’t believe I didn’t look into it more thoroughly! I heard that someone had used one on a teapot and for some reason that was enough for me?

Glad to see you checked it out – I got busy and couldn’t yet. Yeah I thought I had heard it was bad. Oh wait I remember now! It was because I had this antique perfume bottle made with melamine and it makes this specific kind of plastic that is considered collectable! Something like that anyway.

Wow… so I guess I won’t use mine any more either. I always brew a “rinse” brew after I clean it so I’m not worried about using it in the past, but, I don’t think I need to use it in the future. :/

Hmm, I wouldn’t have personally been too concerned about using the magic erasers as long as I wasn’t going to be ingesting anything, which would be doubtful if things are being rinsed well afterwards. The thing with melamine was that whole Chinese contamination scare, where IIRC it was found in milk/baby formula… or was it pet food where they were trying to increase the apparent protein content? Either way, I think melamine itself is pretty common, it’s just not good as a food ingredient! (Just looked this up… it was a problem in both scenarios).

That said, depending on your level of environmental consciousness/fear of chemicals, etc., these may not be great to use, but I suspect they’re no worse than a lot of other things out there. Perhaps just use them with gloves on and be sure to rinse well.

Interesting article: http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/eraser.asp

Thanks Krystaleyn! Now I can make my breville shiny again with no worry. I wasn’t too worried with my past usage of the magic eraser anyway, because I do rinse it really good with a whole “mock” brew cycle and everything to make sure nothing WRONG ends up in my cup of tea. You know. I’m kind of a stickler about such things. There’s nothing quite as wonderful as a good cup of a tea… but nothing quite as horrible as something gone wrong with it … so I do what I can to avoid that!

Thanks Krystaleyn! I will try not to eat too much magic eraser. :)

I have to thank Azzrian for bringing this up in the first place! I had never really thought about what magic erasers were before, and it was interesting to do a bit of sleuthing to find out. I don’t have any here with me, but I have definitely used them before (on walls, primarily) and been quite happy with the results, although I did accidently scrub a bit too hard once and removed some paint… :D

Chemical burns or abrasions? From what I’m reading, it may look like a chemical burn, but it’s actually an abrasion as the magic eraser is like extremely fine sandpaper.

Vinegar doesn’t really work so well to remove the discoloration on the breville though it does help to remove the residual scents and I use it every other week to clean my breville, as I said above.

Not just any vinegar White Vinegar!

Yeah, the baking soda + lemon (or just vinegar) work beautifully on pretty much everything! The bottom of my Breville, after 4-6 months of use, is always just unsalvageable by those means, though. The only things that have worked are cream of tartar and these erasers. I do a cycle every couple weeks like LiberTEAS with vinegar or baking soda to cut down, but it eventually gets to such a gross discoloured phase I need something more aggressive.

Ah bummer to hear – I just got mine and its already discoloring. I should give it a clean.

Being proactive definitely helps! When I slack on mini-cleans and making sure I rinse it immediately after making tea, the buildup is a lot worse.

I have been really good about rising everything and drying after each use, and not leaving leaves in the steeper too long, but I need to do a weekly CLEANING – I have had it maybe a week now so I better start getting into the habit :)

You’ve built the good habits I wish I did from the start! It’s an awesome machine so it sucks when it looks less than awesome. I hope you’re enjoying it! :)

I am LOVING it! I did what I think most people do when trying to decide to take the plunge or not. It was an expensive I was not prepared for really but I dove in and am really happy I did! Now my only fear is breaking something! I am terrified of that! lol I think I handle it more delicately than anything I own!

I have moved hanging tea cups, rearranged the counter, won’t rinse it out if ANYTHING else is in the sink. Im totally paranoid!

Is that a type of bakeware/dishware? What comes to mind when I think of melamine is “counter” or “bowl” :)