Handy Uses for Denture Tablets

Unclog a drain, make a ring shine, and clean your coffeemaker — with denture tablets.

Re-ignite your diamond’s sparkle
Has your diamond ring lost its sparkle? Drop a denture tablet into a glass containing a cup of water. Follow that with your ring or diamond earrings. Let it sit for a few minutes. Remove your jewelry and rinse to reveal the old sparkle and shine.

Vanish mineral deposits on glass
Fresh flowers often leave a ring on your glass vases that seems impossible to remove no matter how hard you scrub. Here’s the answer. Fill the vase with water and drop in a denture tablet. When the fizzing has stopped, all of the mineral deposits will be gone. Use the same method to clean thermos bottles, cruets, glasses, and coffee decanters.

Restore the luster of diamonds with denture tablets.
Restore the luster of diamonds with denture tablets.

Clean a coffeemaker
Hard water leaves mineral deposits in the tank of your electric drip coffeemaker that not only slows the perking but also affects the taste of your brew. Denture tablets will fizz away these deposits and give the tank a bacterial clean-out too. The tablets were designed to clean and disinfect dentures, and they’ll do the same job on your coffeemaker. Drop two denture tablets in the tank and fill it with water. Run the coffeemaker. Discard that potful of water and follow up with one or two rinse cycles with clean water.

Clean your toilet
Looking for a way to make the toilet sparkle again? Porcelain fixtures respond to the cleaning agent in denture tablets. Here’s a solution that does the job in the twinkling of an eye. Drop a denture tablet in the bowl. Wait about 20 minutes and flush. That’s it!

Clean enamel cookware
Stains on enamel cookware are a natural for the denture tablet cleaning solution. Fill the pot or pan with warm water and drop in a tablet or two, depending on its size. Wait a bit — once the fizzing has stopped, your cookware will be clean.

Unclog a drain
Slow drain got you down? Reach for the denture tablets. Drop a couple of tablets into the drain and run water until the problem clears. For a more stubborn clog, drop 3 tablets down the sink, follow that with 1 cup white vinegar, and wait a few minutes. Now run hot water in the drain until the clog is gone.

Reader's Digest
Originally Published in Reader's Digest