Great Cleaner, Recommended To All (Bar Keepers Friend)

Member Name: phillipsdj

Product:	Bar Keepers Friend
Date:	13/05/09 (53 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cleans All Stains, Lasts A Very Long Time

Disadvantages: Smells Awful!

I recently had the 'pleasure' of staying with my in-laws for a while - 13 months :-( - and if I was searching for a positive then finding Barkeeper's Friend would definitely be it. Before moving there I had never heard of it but my mother in law swears by it.

Now that my family and I have finally moved into our house, the first thing put into our basket when shopping for cleaning products was BKF. My bottle is different to the one pictured above, I have a 200g bottle which is white, has a wide bottom and tapers to a slightly more narrow top and has the name and logo on a blue background surrounding it - at the time of writing this bottle is currently pictured to the right.

History:
A quick Google search shows that this was first developed in the 1880's as a product for cleaning brass, the manufacturer was so impressed with it that he started pedalling it to local businesses and it was so popular with saloon owners that it soon got the name Barkeeper's Friend.

The Uses:
BKF is a mildly abrasive cleaner which can be used to clean tough stains from most surfaces - the only surface it is recommended to not be used on is Silver. The instructions state that you should pour some onto a cloth add a small amount of water and scrub, however I sometime apply it straight to the stain and scrub it off. Last night I cooked chicken in a citrus/honey sauce (Chicken a la Phillipsdj!) and it left some burns on the glass dish which normal washing up couldn't shift, however I applied some BKF, scrubbed it with a washing up sponge and the dish was soon as good as new again.

A lot of people also use it to clean their over, hob, sink or work surfaces and although I have not used it for these purposes yet I would have no hesitations in doing so.

The Product:
BKF is a powder which is predominately white in colour (with some blue) and has a very distinctive smell, my mother in law calls it caustic but to my nose it smells like pub toilets - be sure to open some windows when you use it. As previously mentioned, my bottle is 200g in size and I imagine this will last for at least a year or 2 as you only need to use a tiny amount each time.

Availability:
Judging by my Google search and previous DooYoo reviews BKF used to be hard to find in stores, however I got my current bottle from my local Asda and I know that my MiL gets hers from Tesco so it is widely available - in the Southeast at least. I paid a little under £2 for my 200g bottle.

Recommended?:
Yes. Although the smell can be a little off putting I would recommend everyone gets a bottle of this for their kitchen or cleaning cupboard, it is an absolute gem and at under £2 it's not going to break the bank.

Summary: A Great Cleaner Which Every Cleaning Cupboard Should Have