Rub it with oil before you scrub.

The fastest way to get tomato or curry stains out of plastic is to dab the stain with cooking oil, let it sit a minute, and rub — then wash with dish soap.

Sounds backwards, but it works because tomato and turmeric pigments are oil-soluble. They’ve soaked into the pores of the plastic, and plain soapy water just isn’t grabbing them. The oil pulls the pigment out of the pores; the dish soap then washes the oil away. Any neutral oil works — olive, canola, whatever’s in the cabinet.

If there’s still a ghost of the stain, the next trick is sunlight. UV light breaks down the pigment molecules in a few hours, so set the container in a sunny window for an afternoon. Sounds like a myth, but for curry yellow it beats bleach.

For scratched or textured bottoms, a paste of baking soda and a little water gives you abrasion without scratching further.

Sunlight finishes what the oil started.