Just as natural dish soap helps break down dirt, grease, and food that may be stuck on dishes and utensils, it can help break down what's in your toilet bowl. The important thing is to reach for a non toxic dish soap that, once it's flushed and enters the water supply, will be safe for animals and the planet.
It's pretty simple — just like they do on food particles that are stuck to your dishes in the sink, the combination of hot water and dish soap help to dissolve and break up whatever it may be that is lodged in the toilet, causing a clog. This handy tip is great should you find yourself in a pinch.
Homemade Toilet Bowl Cleaner With Dawn & Vinegar
The grease-fighting power of Dawn is unmatched. Add that to the acidic nature of vinegar, and you have a powerful 1-2 combo for this easy recipe. In an old dish soap bottle, combine 1 cup vinegar with 1 cup Dawn.
Try this: Swish a cup of vinegar around in the toilet bowl using a toilet brush, then add a cup of baking soda, followed by an additional cup of vinegar. Let the fizzing solution sit for 10 minutes. Use a toilet brush to scrub stains. Let mixture sit for a few more minutes and then flush.
Pour 1/2 a cup of hydrogen peroxide onto stains. Then sprinkle 1 cup of baking soda on top. Let the mixture sit for 15 minutes. Scrub with a toilet brush and flush.
Simply pour a kettle of almost boiling water into the bowl, follow up with 250ml of citric acid, and leave it for some hours – preferably overnight. The next day, scrub and flush. What's good for those caked-on pots and pans after cooking dinner is also good for removing a brown stain on the bottom of the toilet bowl.
“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.”
Cleaning with a mixture of baking soda and vinegar in the bathroom can work really well. To clean your toilet with vinegar, pour a cup of vinegar in the toilet bowl and let sit overnight. The next morning, sprinkle a little baking soda into the bowl, scrub, and then flush clean.
The majority of my solutions contain blue Dawn® Ultra because it's concentrated. The regular Dawn is a non-concentrated version, (also called Simply Clean) so more diluted. Platinum Dawn is almost identical to Ultra, but it contains more surfactants.
Because dish soap is meant to break up oils and lift grease and grime from your flatware and utensils, there's no reason why it shouldn't work on the oily soap and human grease build-up accumulating in your tub or shower!
According to Abrams, an ordinary bar of soap placed inside a mask, a net, or any other porous material should be a perfectly safe way to keep a toilet bowl clean when you flush it. But there are a few caveats to consider.
To remove tough stains, add the baking soda and vinegar mix to your toilet and then allow the solution to sit in the bowl for up to 30 minutes. During that time, the chemical reaction between the sodium bicarbonate and vinegar will work to eat away at those stubborn hard water stains.
Pour equal parts of vinegar and Dawn into a spray bottle. Gently shake, then spray liberally onto the surface to be cleaned. I have found the best results is when I use it to clean chrome shower and sink fixtures. After spraying on the fixture, rub and wipe it with a microfiber cloth to avoid scratching.
Vinegar is a natural acid that can dissolve calcium deposits. You can pour vinegar into the toilet bowl and let it sit for a few hours before scrubbing with a toilet brush.
If there are brown stains, it is probably from iron in your water. If you discover a thick, slimy mess, it is likely from iron bacteria growing in your toilet tank. Iron bacteria is a bacteria that fixes to iron particles in the water.
Deep-cleaning scrub — Great for soap scum and mildew. Mix 1 to 2/3 cups baking soda, ½ cup castile soap or other quality liquid dish detergent, ½ cup water, 2 tablespoons of white vinegar. Stir till dissolved. Spray on scum and mildew; scrub with scrubby sponge.
Use Dawn and some hot water and a cloth or sponge to get into those nooks and crannies where grime and scale tend to build up. You can also combine Dawn with vinegar for stronger cleaning power, especially when tackling hard water stains.
A much better solution is to use some WD-40 Multi-Use Product. Most people don't know that WD-40 can solve many of their household cleaning needs quickly and easily. When cleaning a toilet bowl, WD-40 works by softening the rust and lime deposits, so they can be easily wiped away. You don't need to use much of it.
The carbonic acid that is in coke is what helps to clean toilet stains. Picture the acidity slowly working its way through the stains, melting them away. It can take a while depending on how stubborn the stain is which is why it's vital to have a suitable cleaning method depending on how bad the toilet condition is.
In this case, a basic toilet cleaning product may not be enough, and you will need to use undiluted bleach. As a one-stop cleaning solution, pour one cup of bleach around the bowl. Then tackle every inch with a toilet brush or a handheld scrub brush. Let it sit for five minutes, then flush.