Generally speaking, we recommend using baking soda and vinegar as a gentle and natural cleaner that is also tough on soap scum and hard water buildup.
Sometimes, with soap scum, professionals will need detergents or degreasers as well to clean it thoroughly. Bleach is good for removing mold and mildew from your shower grout, but it's more of a temporary solution. You need to really clean the mold from within and seal the grout to prevent any mold from spreading.
Dawn dish soap and vinegar – Mix equal parts of vinegar and blue Dawn dish soap into a spray bottle. Run the shower for a few minutes on hot to heat up the shower space. Spray to coat the surface of the shower walls evenly with the mixture. Let sit for 5 minutes then use a damp cleaning rag to wipe away.
Baking Soda and Vinegar
To get rid of soap or grout stains on your tiles, just add some water to the baking soda and make a thick paste. Apply this paste generously to your tiles. Add a few drops of vinegar to the paste to clean your tiles even more effectively.
For a tried and true cleaner to tackle hard water stains, we recommend Bio-Clean Hard Water Stain Remover. It's easy to use, efficient, and it smells pleasant, too. For a more budget-friendly but still effective pick, check out CLR Multi-Use Calcium, Lime & Rust Remover.
The floor of your shower is easily the area that gets dirty the quickest. The moist surface and build-up of soap make it a space that can breed germs or mold more often. Depending on the surface of your shower, you may want to avoid using something abrasive to prevent harming the texture of your shower.
If you have brown or white residue or scum that builds up in your shower, toilet or sink and won't come off easily with standard cleaners, this is also a tell-tale sign of hard water.
Apply your natural cleaning solution (vinegar, baking soda or Murphy® Oil Soap) and allow it to sit on the floor while you run the shower for a few minutes. Let the steam build up in the room, and keep the door closed. The humidity in the air essentially amplifies the cleaning power of the cleaner.
Shower Tile
Begin by pre-treating the surfaces with a water-vinegar solution. Then use a baking soda paste and scrub with a stiff bristle brush. Once you've loosened up the dirt on the tiles, you can use scouring pads to scrub the surface clean.
Roff Cera Clean is the best pick for cleaning all types of tile surfaces. It is an all-purpose product that works well for getting rid of any kind of dust or oil accumulation on tiles. This highly versatile liquid takes rapid action on the surface and helps in retaining its natural look.
Glass tile is a popular option for walk-in shower floors, because it is durable and easy to clean. Glass tile is also impervious to water, which makes it a good choice for high-traffic areas like showers.
Bathtubs, showers, and toilets are other areas you'll want to scrub down and disinfect, so hands off the original Windex. “The best cleaning product for the bathroom are any products that are bleach or peroxide-based, like Lysol with Bleach or Comet,” says Monica Bowman of Two Maids & A Mop.
Bleach works great on vinyl, nonporous tile and even grout. Back-to-school cleaning. Ace your cleaning curriculum with Clorox products and tips. Hard, nonporous flooring surfaces, especially those in bathrooms and kitchens, can be easily cleaned with a Clorox bleach and water solution.
Spray all over the tub and shower and let it sit for a few minutes to a few hours, depending how challenging the job is. Scrub if you need to, but the scum should rub right off. Don't worry about the strong vinegar smell. You will be pleasantly surprised it smells more like Dawn than vinegar!
The dish-washing liquid, when combined with an equal part of vinegar, is a solution that many pinners praise for taking off soap scum without scrubbing. I don't know what mystical ingredient blue Dawn has hidden inside, but this stuff works. Just spray, wipe, and rinse.
In a bowl, combine 2 cups water, 1.5 cups baking soda, 1/3 cup vinegar, and 1/3 cup Dawn. Using a spoon, gently stir, making sure there are no lumps. Add the mixture to a clean spray bottle. Spray the floor with the mixture.
“Vinegar is a good cleaner because it's acidic, but when you add dishwashing liquid/dish soap to it (which is a base or neutral) - you neutralise the vinegar. You take away the very thing that makes it work well. “The dishwashing liquid works that well on its own. Adding the vinegar is a pointless step.”
To make the best homemade shower cleaner, just combine equal amounts of Dawn dish soap and white vinegar in a spray bottle and gently shake mix. Spray down your shower with it, wait half an hour, then rinse clean!
Dish soap is very effective on resilient floorings, such as linoleum and vinyl, and also works well on ceramic tile. But do not use soap and water on wood floors, as they may be stained or warped by moisture. If you have plastic laminate flooring, follow the manufacturer's recommendation for cleaning.