Anyone who has used Tupperware to store their food will know just how easily the plastic containers can become stained.
And the oily orange tint from pasta sauces and stews seem to be a particularly stubborn blight.
But a viral hack circulating on social media claims there is a simple way to remove stains in just seconds.
Now, a scientist reveals why this trick works so well and explains how you can say goodbye to those pesky orange marks.
According to videos posted on TikTok, all you need to do to remove oily stains is to add water, dish soap, and a paper towel to the container and shake.
Once the sealed Tupperware has been sufficiently shaken, you should find yourself with an oily towel and sparkling clean plastic.
Jason Tetro, microbiologist and host of the Super Awesome Science Show and author of The Germ Code, told : ‘The hack works because it’s a two-pronged approach to getting rid of the stain.’
However, there are a few things you need to do to make sure this works every time.
Anyone who has ever used a Tupperware container will know how difficult it is to remove those pesky orange stains. Luckily, scientists have revealed an easy cleaning hack (stock image)
The viral hack circulating on TikTok claims that by adding soap, water, and a paper towel to your container before shaking, you can easily remove any greasy stains
Why do plastic containers get stained so easily?
Although the surface of a Tupperware container might look similar to other materials, it is very different at the microscopic level.
Mr Tetro says: ‘Plastic containers, unlike steel and glass, are not completely smooth.
‘If you take a look at them under an electron microscope, you’ll see pores that can allow oils to get trapped.’
This means that plastic containers are more likely to pick up oily stains from your food than glass or ceramic options.
Unlike discolouration caused by other substances, these stains are also particularly difficult to remove because of oil’s chemical properties.
Mr Tetro says: ‘The oils are stubborn because they repel water and as such, rinsing and washing won’t extract them from those pores.’
Water is able to dissolve some substances because it is ‘polar’, meaning its molecules have areas of different electrical charges.
Plastic containers absorb oils because they are not perfectly smooth at the microscopic level, with the bumps and pores becoming more pronounced each time they are heated. This image shows a plastic takeaway container seen under a very powerful microscope
Oily foods leave more stubborn stains because oils cannot be dissolved in water. This is because their molecules don’t have areas of different electrical charges for water molecules to stick to, meaning they cannot be broken down by water alone
Scientists explain that adding soap allows oils to break down because the detergent produces microscopic bubbles called micelles
Other polar molecules, like salt, stick to these charged areas, allowing them to dissolve.
However, since oils aren’t polar, water alone can’t dissolve them – which makes oily stains harder to wash away.
How does this cleaning hack work?
This viral cleaning trick works to remove oily stains because it combines two effective techniques in one.
Since water alone can’t dissolve oil, you need something that has the right chemical properties to pull the stains out of your Tupperware.
Mr Tetro says: ‘Dish soap contains what we call a surfactant, and this chemical is excellent at trapping oils inside small, microscopic bubbles known as micelles.
‘You can just add the detergent, and you’ll get micelles. But if you want to make as many as you can to improve stain removal, then you need to do one thing – shake it up like a Taylor Swift fan!
The more you shake, the more micelles you make and the better the stain removal process.’
As you shake the container, the micelles produced by the soap trap the oils and pull them away from the plastic
This is why putting water and soap in the container before vigorously shaking is key to helping get the plastic surface clean.
Natalie D’Apolito, a spokesperson for the American Cleaning Institute, told : ‘When combined with dish soap, shaking a paper towel and water inside a plastic storage container will cause agitation inside the container, helping to remove set-in stains by activating the soap and vigorously wiping the inside of the container.
‘Another way to think about this is by considering how washing machines agitate, or move, the items inside during a wash cycle.’
However, it is important to use an absorbent paper towel rather than any other kind of scrubbing material.
Mr Tetro points out that the paper towel acts as ‘another kind of trap, but this time for the micelles’.
‘The micelles tend to float in the liquid freely and can end up pretty much anywhere, but if you provide a large matrix for them to get trapped, then you can prevent them from going back into the pores,’ says Mr Tetro.
‘First, the detergent makes all those micelles that trap the oil, and the paper towel traps those micelles so that they don’t end up going back into the pores when you rinse the container.’
How to make this cleaning trick work
By adding an absorbent paper towel, these oil-laden micelles are then trapped in the mesh of fibres. This prevents the oil from escaping back onto the plastic, leaving the Tupperware clean
If you want to use this trick yourself, there are a few factors to bear in mind.
First, you need to clean the container as soon as possible to have the best chance of removing any stains.
While the micelles in the soap are effective at breaking down oils, there is a limit to how effective they can be.
The longer the oils are on the plastic, the longer they have to seep into the pores, and the harder the stain will be to remove.
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‘The sooner you can clean stains, the better the process will be,’ says Mr Tetro.
Likewise, when a Tupperware container is heated, the plastic softens and the porous surface expands slightly, allowing oils to penetrate even further.
Ms D’Apolito says this can be caused by microwaving a container with food inside or by the residual heat from warm food.
So, if you want to ensure your containers are easy to clean, don’t use them in the microwave and allow food to cool completely before storing it.