Iron Cleaning Tip

I struggle to clean my iron.  I have tried every product on the market for this and nothing has thoroughly done the job.  I am always left with some spots that refuse to come clean.  Well, not any more.

A while back I read a tip in Threads magazine about iron cleaning which suggested using ceramic cook top cleaner.  I bought a bottle and tried it and, once again, could not get the iron completely clean.  So this week I tried a different approach.  I made a large puddle of the cleaner on my teflon pressing sheet, warmed up the iron for just a minute at the lowest temperature and then turned off the iron.  I smeared the sole plate into the puddle of cleaner and made sure the entire surface of the plate was covered.  I then left the iron with the sole plate down on the pressing sheet in the cleaner for several hours.  I re-warmed the plate of the iron briefly, turned off the heat and wiped away the cleaner.  Every last spot came off this time.  As always I had to deal with the cleaner getting into the steam holes but found a pipe cleaner a handy tool to remove the residue.  So if you have trouble getting your iron completely clean give this method a shot.