How To Clean Cloudy Drinking Glasses

Need a solution for those annoying cloudy drinking glasses? Let us help. We’d battled cloudy drinking glasses for years. There were times we’ve been embarrassed to set them out when guests have come over!

When someone asks for milk we were actually relieved because they won’t be able to tell how cloudy the glasses were. But now we’ve found an easy way to clean them that we want to share with you.

Cloudy drinking glasses are typically caused by one of two reasons. In this article, we’ll look at what can cause the issue and how to prevent it. We’ll also share the easiest way we’ve found to clean those stubborn cloudy glasses.

In this article, we will be providing you with a few links to some products for pricing and informational purposes. We are required to let you know some of these links are “affiliate links”. This means if you click on a link and make a purchase, we could make a small commission, at no extra cost to you. This helps offset the cost of maintaining our website. Now, let’s get started.

Why Are My Drinking Glasses Cloudy?

In researching what causes cloudy glasses I found there are two typical causes. The first one is permanent etching. As the name implies, this one is not something you can cure. Prevention is the name of the game.

The second cause is hard water deposits. This is the one we battle at our home and have found a solution that works!

It’s best to try and prevent clouding, or at least delay the onset. Each cause has a means of delaying the clouding, but only the hard water deposit cause won’t lead to permanent clouding.

Permanent Etching

This normally occurs in homes with soft water and when dishwashers are used. According to an article at learn.compactappliance.com the phosphates in dishwasher detergent and excessively hot water are among the main culprits for causing cloudy drinking glasses.

The best way to prevent, or delay, the cloudiness from occurring would be to handwash your glasses. If you continue to use your dishwasher, the best recommendation I’ve heard is to remove your glasses from the dishwasher after the wash cycle, rinse them, and let them air dry. In other words, you may be looking at replacing your glasses every six months or so.

Hard Water Deposits

As I mentioned earlier, hard water deposits are the cause of our cloudiness issue. We’ve tried scrubbing them and soaking them in vinegar, but we could never get them back to looking new.

I even read a recommendation to soak them in acetone! Acetone is a powerful, flammable liquid that can irritate the skin, nose, and throat. It may be able to dissolve the build-up, but I don’t think I would recommend that!

Instead, we found a much easier and safer way to get rid of those cloudy glasses.

How to Clean Cloudy Glasses

Oxyclean to the rescue!  Oxyclean is a very versatile cleaner.  I use it to clean my homebrew beer bottles and other brewing equipment.  That’s where I got the idea to try it on our cloudy drinking glasses.

By the way, don’t throw the Oxyclean solution out when you’re done.  That same solution can be used to soak casserole dishes with stubborn food stains or it can be added right in with your laundry.  It’s a great product. 

Initial Cloudy Glass Cleaning

We soaked our cloudy glasses in a solution of 1/3 cup Oxyclean to one gallon of water for approximately an hour. When removed, we gave them a light scrub with a bottle brush, rinsed them with hot water and let them air dry. The results were outstanding! They were beautiful!

Ongoing Cleaning

To help keep them clean on an ongoing basis, Oxyclean makes an actual dishwasher product that can be put in your dishwasher’s additive release dispenser.

Conclusion

That is how we cured our problem with hard water deposits on drinking glasses. I am confident it can work for you as well.

It was relatively painless and with the ongoing use of the Oxyclean rinse agent, it has not been an issue for many months now.

If we do see any signs of cloudiness returning, at least we have a good way to take care of the problem. Give it a try and let us know how it worked on your cloudy drinking glasses.

If you have any comments or questions, you can leave them in the comments section below or you can email us at [email protected]. FYI, we do not collect or share email addresses.  We will only use them to reply to your comments or provide answers to your questions. We are also required to let you know that some of our links are “affiliate links”. This means if you click on a link and make a purchase, we could make a small commission, at no extra cost to you. This helps offset the cost of maintaining our website. So, if you like what you’ve seen, please be sure to give us a “Like” and “Share” on Facebook and Instagram too.  Thank you for reading and good luck with all your home projects!