How to get the smell out of jar lids

When I was a kid, it was a favourite job of mine to tidy up my grandmother's kitchen cupboard. There has always been something in me that wants to bring order from chaos, and this type of job fit the bill perfectly. I look back now, and think Grandma was wise in letting me have my head and sort to my heart's content. That need for tidiness and order was probably a response to the uncertainty of my childhood, a time when the marriage of my mum and dad was disintegrating around me.

Not that Grandma's cupboards were a tip, by any means. She did however come from that generation that lived through the Great Depression, and they knew well the value of recycling way before it became a more modern day thing. The amount of jars she collected never went to waste, particularly when jam-making season came around. She loved her marmalade, and put her citrus trees to good use, harvesting and creating a fresh batch of jam every season. Her jars of choice to recycle for jam making were those belonging to Mrs Trewren's jams, a brand I remember well from our breakfast table but which have long since disappeared from our supermarket shelves.

Again, it is probably my love for order that has prompted my choice to collect jars of a similar size. The ones that we seem to have the biggest supply of are those for salsa dip. A move to salsa was a dietary decision based on trying to have our cake and eat it too - to still enjoy dip as a snack, but to steer away from the creamier, dairy based dips which came with higher kilojoules. Over the past year we have collected many, and I've already put some to good use, which has been kind to our budget as I never need to use disposable containers. This issue for me however, was that no matter how much I washed the lids, the strong smell of salsa remained. I was concerned that this would spoil whatever I kept in the jars in future.

I trawled the internet looking for answers to this problem, and found many possible solutions: - vinegar, water and bicarb (baking) soda made into a paste, coarse sea salt, denture cleaning tablets, bleach and cooking oil.  Most involved multi-day soaking or repeated treatments.

Until one answer stunned me with its simplicity. Could it be true? Could it really be that easy?

Sunshine.

Good old free-to-all sunshine. Could anything be more budget-friendly?

Would this really work for smelly jar lids?

I was hopeful, but more than a little sceptical. I had a dozen jars just waiting to be used if only I could fix the smelly lids. What did I have to lose?

So, I gave it a go. And I couldn't be happier with the results.

Smelly jar lids on top of our hot water service - drinking in the sunshine.

Even though I look at the lids and can still see the staining from the salsa (which no amount of scrubbing has been able to remove), the smell is now gone! I am still astounded at such a simple and cheap solution.

In a sense, I should have guessed, though. When we were setting up our home at Bountiful, we bought a second hand fridge through Gumtree. When I had inspected the fridge it had been plugged in and all was well, but when we picked it up a week later, it had been left turned off with the door closed, and my goodness, it reeked! There was no way I was going to put my food in there and have it all end up smelling like that. I tried the solutions I knew for cleaning fridges, like using warm water with some vanilla added, but all to no avail. That smell was not going to budge.

Again, I think Google was the friend who suggested that I take the fridge outside and open up all the doors to the fresh air and sunlight. I left it out for an extra day just to make sure, but yes, that horror odour vamoosed, never to return.

So, next time you have a smelly problem, take it outside!

I now have a great supply of jars ready to go for whatever project I think of next. One thing's for sure, whatever use I find for them, smell will no longer be an issue.

If you try this method, or have found others to be successful for you, please post your response, I'd love to hear about it.

As always, there is a song spinning around in my head as I write. I seem to spend a lot of time on Google looking for answers, so how about Robert Palmer's Looking for Clues? 

This post is in memory of my wonderful Gran, who passed away on this day in 2012, just a few weeks shy of her 100th birthday. She was a great believer in the power of sunshine, and I'm sure she would have known it would get the smells out of jar lids, for sure. 

Tracey 💕


With thanks to

Lost Melbourne Facebook page for the image of Mrs Trewren's 1lb jam jar.

RPO Nation's YouTube Channel for Robert Palmer's Looking for Clues.

Gillian Saxon's blog My Square Frying Pan for the image of Mrs Trewren's 200g strawberry jam jar.

My darling Gran - 3/7/1912 - 13/6/2012