If you're partial to a toasted bagel or avocado on sourdough for lunch, you should be cleaning your toaster once a month. You're also - apparently - meant to remove the crumb tray every week.
We thought we knew how to clean a toaster, but clearly weren't being as thorough as we could have been. As you can see, mine was looking embarrassingly grubby, so it was high time I tried the toothpaste toaster cleaning hack you've most definitely seen on social media.
before
Out of all the cleaning tricks we've tried, this was the quickest and up there with the most satisfying.
Just in case you're not familiar, cleaning fans claim that toothpaste and a toothbrush work brilliantly to remove those brown, burnt-on stains you get on the top of your best toaster. I used a few squeezes of toothpaste overall, starting out with the toothbrush.
To be honest, I didn't really feel like I could apply as much pressure as I needed to with the toothbrush. It was kind of fiddly and the bristles soon started to splay outwards, so after a while, I tried a normal washing-up sponge.
That wasn't quite working either, so I ramped things up with a really abrasive metal scour. While you're here, I'd just like to say that our toaster was a hand-me-down, so I'm not precious about it (shock - have you seen the 'before' picture?).
But if you've recently invested in a new one, use something a little softer to avoid scratches, or use something that's designed not to leave any marks.
I wiped the toaster down afterwards - and had it unplugged the entire time. The stains didn't exactly disappear before my eyes, but the toothpaste did make a huge difference after a good amount of scrubbing.
Now the toaster's looking much, much better. Overall, we'd recommend this hack - it didn't take long at all, and although there were a few stubborn stains clinging on at the end, I'm not bad about it.
After
If you don't like the idea of a minty-smelling toaster, you could just use The Pink Stuff, available on Amazon, which is often hailed as one of the best cleaning products for removing stubborn stains.
Will you be trying the toothpaste toaster cleaning hack?
