I use a cleaner that walmart has for irons. It's a little tube that goes on a rag and then you run a hot iron over it. I does a good job of getting the sole plate clean for me.

My Rowenta iron is so bad .........."How BAD is it??"

The whole plate was completely black from ironing felt and covered with Heat and Bond and all kinds of crafty ironing
that I just took out 000 steel wool and ironed over it.(with the iron ON) Then I scrubbed until everything came off. Iused it today and it's fine. Really felt that I had nothing to lose. If I didn't have another iron for regular ironing maybe I wouldn't have done it. But it's fine.

Of all the cleaners I've tried, Dritz "Iron Off" works the best for me. I tried the Magic Eraser, not the heavy duty one, and found it lacking. While it did do a great job inside the cavern before the soleplate (that narrow area that buttons will slide through when you're doing a shirt), it just didn't clean the bottom of my iron nearly as well the "Iron Off". In fact, I finished cleaning my iron with the "Iron Off" after the Magic Eraser wouldn't get it all.

I like everyones great tips. Thanks. I do alot of applique with webbing so I bought an old iron at a yard sale just to use for that. I use a brown paper bag and put salt on it and rub the iron around on it and it seems to work too.

Mr. Clean Magic Eraser worked for mine, too. Even if you don't think your iron is "bad", give it a cleaning, the sides of mine had a lot of accumulation, I wondered why I had a dark streak on fabric occasionally -- Got a lot of oxidation or accumulation off and NO dark streaks since!!!!

Use an old dryer sheet. Simply lay it out on the ironing board and run your hot iron over it a few times. It works amazingly well. You can even stack several old dryer sheets together if you are worried about anything coming off onto the ironing board. Hope this helps!

A long time ago I heard to allow iron to cool, dampen (wet and wring out) a washcloth and use sodium bicarbonate. Over the years it has worked for me. Sometimes I needed more of the paste than others. Once I needed the assistance of an old toothbrush. But it's good to know about all these other things if I need it. Thank you. I will share this website as it is about baking sode also. http://www.cancerfungus.com/ My family says it was used to be added to bath water and foot soaks and compresses.

It happened to me this morning. I grabbed the Mr. Clean eraser and used it on the hot iron. (BE CAREFUL!) Everything came off and it looks like new.
It was bad....how bad was it? I was using the iron on transfers for dark fabric and you are supposed to cover it with the pressing sheet. OOPS....I forgot and the whole thing fused right to the iron.

Hi there. Heat up your iron and run it over a dryer sheet. It will clean up nicely. Rosalyne

I put salt on brown paper bag & run the iron over it comes right off