shower and tub cleaner for hard water stains or soap scum

cknmom

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:weee:bun I have been using this for a few weeks now. I won't EVER go back to what i was using. I love this. No scrubbing and sparkling clean!! It used to take me an hour and would be scrubbing and get sweaty. Now it takes me a total(with letting it set) of 30 min.:ya

Monica
 

moolie

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So glad it's working well for you cknmom!

:welcome John_henry!
 

moolie

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terri9630 said:
I want to know how you got your hubby to clean the shower.:hu
I don't clean bathrooms ;)

Actually, we divided up household chores when we first got married--he does the bathrooms and dishes, and takes out the garbage and recycling.
 

~gd

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moolie said:
It just occurred to me that my hubs has been using a new concoction for a few months now that may not have been posted here before--if it has, please forgive me.

Hubs is the designated tub and shower cleaner at our place. He read online about a mixture of 1 part vinegar to 1 part Dawn dish soap being an excellent soap scum and hard water stain remover, but we don't buy Dawn. So he tried it with Sunlight instead, and being the cheapskate (er, frugal guy) he is, he went with 2 parts vinegar to 1 part Sunlight dish soap. The original instructions also said to heat the vinegar first, but this he also ignored.

He was very pleased with his first use of the new cleaner, as we have very hard water (our water source is a river that begins at a Rocky Mountain glacier so has a lot of minerals dissolved in it) and one spray-down plus gentle wipe-down about half an hour later made both our tub and our stand-up shower sparkly clean.

He has used it every couple of weeks for a couple of months now and still loves it. The smell after cleaning isn't objectionable, although the scent of lemony Sunlight and vinegar mixed together is a little unusual--more vinegary than soapy. No idea what the Dawn mixture would smell like.

So, if you have hard water or trouble with soap scum I recommend giving it a try :)
If the vinegar smell bothers you [it makes me cough] try to locate some dry citric acid. Canning supply used to make canned items higher acid for low acid foods [like many tomatoes today] You will want to dilute the dry acid in water. 1 part acid to 20 parts water by weight will give acid strength near that of vinegar (5%) Being cheap myself the citric acid is going to look expensive but remember it is concentrated and you can try using less since citric dissolves minerals better than vinegar. A little added to a dishwasher will clean up the minerals and I also use it to clean my coffee maker.~gd
 

~gd

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Denim Deb said:
I'll have to try this. I have both Dawn and Sunlight, so maybe I can make a small batch of each and see which works better. Our water is acidic, and as a result, it will corrode the copper pipes so we end up w/green in the tub.
Vinegar is acid too so it may not work on those green copper salts. Try something basic like WASHING SODA not baking soda. It doesn't work very well on soap scum however.~gd
 

moolie

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~gd said:
moolie said:
It just occurred to me that my hubs has been using a new concoction for a few months now that may not have been posted here before--if it has, please forgive me.

Hubs is the designated tub and shower cleaner at our place. He read online about a mixture of 1 part vinegar to 1 part Dawn dish soap being an excellent soap scum and hard water stain remover, but we don't buy Dawn. So he tried it with Sunlight instead, and being the cheapskate (er, frugal guy) he is, he went with 2 parts vinegar to 1 part Sunlight dish soap. The original instructions also said to heat the vinegar first, but this he also ignored.

He was very pleased with his first use of the new cleaner, as we have very hard water (our water source is a river that begins at a Rocky Mountain glacier so has a lot of minerals dissolved in it) and one spray-down plus gentle wipe-down about half an hour later made both our tub and our stand-up shower sparkly clean.

He has used it every couple of weeks for a couple of months now and still loves it. The smell after cleaning isn't objectionable, although the scent of lemony Sunlight and vinegar mixed together is a little unusual--more vinegary than soapy. No idea what the Dawn mixture would smell like.

So, if you have hard water or trouble with soap scum I recommend giving it a try :)
If the vinegar smell bothers you [it makes me cough] try to locate some dry citric acid. Canning supply used to make canned items higher acid for low acid foods [like many tomatoes today] You will want to dilute the dry acid in water. 1 part acid to 20 parts water by weight will give acid strength near that of vinegar (5%) Being cheap myself the citric acid is going to look expensive but remember it is concentrated and you can try using less since citric dissolves minerals better than vinegar. A little added to a dishwasher will clean up the minerals and I also use it to clean my coffee maker.~gd
Thanks for the idea! We use the citric acid (from a local natural foods store) in canning tomatoes. We personally aren't finding the smell of the vinegar/detergent mixture too objectionable so we'll probably keep on with that. But it's a great idea for others who might want to try this who don't like the vinegar smell :)
 

~gd

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Whatever floats your boat, This was a trick I learned in the Navy 50 years ago, They used to have an uncolored lemonade powder [sort of like Koolade without the color] citric acid and artifical lemon flavor Yum-Yum. Seawater is hard and if we run short of fresh water they would switch to seawater for washing use and showers Yuck! This is what we would use to clean showers and the stainless steel 'basins' when we got in port and connected back to Fresh water. ~gd
 

luvinlife offthegrid

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I have a LOT of calcium in my water. I get white gritty deposits all over my bathroom fixtures. It mixes with any soap scum and makes it hard to get off. What I have been doing so far which works well: Straight vinegar in a spray bottle, with a few drops of essential oil. Spray the surface until wet and let sit for a few minutes. Then I use baking soda as a scrub, directly on the sponge, or shake out of an empty parmesan cheese shaker right into the tub.

I'm always looking for something to save steps! ;) I like the scrubbing action of the baking soda, but I'm sure I can mix some in if I find I need more of a scrub. I'll give this a try. Thanks!
 

moolie

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luvinlife offthegrid said:
I have a LOT of calcium in my water. I get white gritty deposits all over my bathroom fixtures. It mixes with any soap scum and makes it hard to get off. What I have been doing so far which works well: Straight vinegar in a spray bottle, with a few drops of essential oil. Spray the surface until wet and let sit for a few minutes. Then I use baking soda as a scrub, directly on the sponge, or shake out of an empty parmesan cheese shaker right into the tub.

I'm always looking for something to save steps! ;) I like the scrubbing action of the baking soda, but I'm sure I can mix some in if I find I need more of a scrub. I'll give this a try. Thanks!
Our water is hard like that--it comes straight from Rocky mountain glaciers and is a deep turquoise in colour from all the dissolved minerals.

Try spraying the detergent/vinegar mixture on and leaving it for a while, then it just rinses right off complete with the mineral deposits and soap scum :)
 
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