Why Alka-Seltzer Is Your Secret Weapon for Cleansing

It’s probably helped you deal with indigestion and hangovers, but Alka-Seltzer can do more than just settle your stomach: It can also help clean your house. Besides aspirin, its two other main ingredients have cleansing properties: sodium bicarbonate (better known as baking soda ) and citric acid , which acts like white vinegar or lemon juice, only stronger. Here are a few ways Alka-Seltzer can come in handy and help keep your home clean.

How to Clean Alka-Seltzer

If you’ve run out of your usual products or just want to try something new, here are some ways to clean with Alka-Seltzer (or its generic equivalent):

Clean the toilet

Lifehacker covered this tip back in 2011 , and it’s still relevant today. According to the post, “Simply toss two Alka-Seltzer tablets into a bowl and return a few minutes later with a toilet brush to finish the job.”

Getting rid of stains on mugs

No matter how much you clean them, it will be difficult to remove coffee and tea stains from the bottom of light-colored mugs. All you have to do is fill each mug with hot water, add an Alka-Seltzer tablet, leave for 15 minutes, then wipe and rinse.

Clean the coffee maker

Speaking of coffee stains, Alka-Seltzer is the key to a sparkling- clean coffee maker , especially if you don’t like the smell of hot vinegar. Dissolve three or four tablets in about 10 ounces of water, then run the solution through a coffee maker. Once this is done, run several cycles of clean water to flush the machine.

Prepare a cleaning solution

If you need an all-purpose cleaner , add two or three tablets to about six ounces of warm water, pour it into a spray bottle, and spray.