Yes, you can clean off rust with aluminium foil – the easy way to get metal fittings and furniture looking like new

There's nothing more frustrating than finding out that your favourite furniture pieces are starting to rust. Or, maybe you're in the market for secondhand home decore and the one thing standing between you and taking home a beautiful vintage piece are unsightly rust marks. Little did you know, you've already got the secret weapon to cleaning rust in your kitchen drawers: aluminium foil.

Yes, cleaning rust with aluminium foil really works as a tried and tested method to clean rust off metal. All you need to do is crumple up a piece of aluminium foil, dip it in water, and get to scrubbing. It's that easy.

We first spotted this hack from a viral TikTok video, which received over 430,000 views and demonstrated the hack on some rusted chair legs. The result was so spotless, you wouldn't even be able to guess that it was so heavily rusted beforehand.

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Although cleaning rust with aluminium foil is something we've only recently come across, it's a natural cleaning hack that has been around for a long time, often used to remove rust from chrome-plated bathroom fittings like radiators and showerheads.

Seeing as a bathroom is notorious for its wet environment, it's no surprise that rust is typically the biggest issue in this area of a home. Knowing you can tackle these often-missed areas when cleaning a bathroom with something as easily accessible as aluminium foil is super handy and a bathroom cleaning hack we'll keep under our belt.

Paired with the hack of using baking paper to remove hard water stains, who would've known you had a whole roster of cleaning products already available in your kitchen? However, if you don't have aluminium foil to hand, it's easy enough to buy at Amazon.

What kind of metal does it work on?

One thing to note, however, is that cleaning rust with aluminium foil is only effective on chrome-plated surfaces and won't have the same effect if your goal is to clean a stainless steel sink, for example. In this case, you're better off opting for alternative methods.

But, if your main problem areas of rust are the likes of metal radiators, appliances, and even things like kitchen utensils, then cleaning rust with aluminium foil will do the trick.

As we mentioned earlier, if rust is usually one of your biggest turn-offs when buying secondhand furniture, now you know it's easily fixed. Who knows, you might even be able to restore some old furniture you've packed away for the same reason.

Needless to say, this is a pretty nifty hack that we'll definitely be using in our homes from now on for those quick rust fixes. Who needs a cleaning cupboard when you've got stocked-up kitchen cabinets, after all?