Debate: should you sanitize dollar store mugs before using them or does boiling ruin the glaze?

Last week I snagged six weird cat mugs at a Goodwill in Portland for $0.50 each, but my buddy says you have to boil thrift store ceramics to kill germs while another forum swore boiling can crack cheap glazes - so who's actually risking mold or lead and who's just overthinking a $0.50 mug?

2 comments

2 Comments

william4073d ago

Boiling can crack cheap glazes" - see, I think people way overthink this whole thing. You're buying a dollar store mug, not some antique china. Run it through the dishwasher on the hottest cycle if you're worried, that'll kill anything living in there without the sudden temp change that can mess up cheap glaze. Boiling water straight into a cold mug might crack it, yeah, but slowly heating it up in a pot of water? That's not gonna do much unless the mug is already damaged. As for lead, that's a different problem - no amount of washing fixes lead in the glaze, but honestly most modern dollar store stuff is made in China and tested enough to pass basic safety standards. Your buddy is right to be cautious about germs from a thrift store, but boiling is overkill when a good scrub with dish soap does the same thing without the risk.

olivia_wilson3d ago

You're going the other way on this, I get it. But I gotta say, I've seen enough cheap mugs come apart in dishwashers too, not just from boiling. That hot cycle can mess with the glaze and even warp the handle on some of those super thin dollar store finds. And honestly, "tested enough to pass basic safety standards" doesn't mean much when you're talking about lead or cadmium - those tests are voluntary for a lot of imported ceramics, and I've read reports about stuff from dollar stores failing after a few washes. So if it were me with a thrift store mug I really liked, I'd still boil it just for peace of mind, because a cracked mug is a bummer but a heavy metal headache is worse. What do you think, am I being too paranoid?