A towel gets wetter as it dries and a bath gets dirtier as its occupant gets cleaner. It’s a good idea to clean your bath once every week or so, and with our handy guide, you can get the job done with ease.
First things first…
Before you make a start, clear the bathtub of anything in it: bath mat, toiletries, bath toys, and so on. Make sure you clean off any soap scum
It’s always a good idea to clean in a well-ventilated environment, so open the window if your bathroom has one. For your own safety, wear gloves and goggles too. Then it’s on to the cleaning itself!
Cleaning your bath: step by step
Firstly, make sure you’ve got the right cleaning products for your bath. Steel wool and other abrasive cleaning products will scratch an enamel tub, for example. It’s wise to stick with non-abrasive cloths and gentle cleaning products. This might mean putting some serious effort into scrubbing baked-in grime, unfortunately!
You can use an off-the-shelf bathroom spray to clean your bathtub without too much difficulty. But in the age of eco-friendly cleaning, why not try a home-made bath cleaner?
If your bath gets limescale, particularly around the taps, showerhead, and plughole, try squirting vinegar on it. No, not the stuff you put on your chips, but white vinegar. It’s a light acid, and will break down the calcium carbonate that makes up limescale. For even more stubborn deposits, try lemon or lime juice – it might smell better too! You’ll need to wait about 30 minutes to an hour for the vinegar to really work – plenty of time to clean the rest of the bathroom!
Be careful not to mix vinegar with bleach, hydrogen peroxide, or baking soda. Mixing bleach and vinegar gives off chlorine gas, which is highly toxic and potentially lethal. Vinegar and hydrogen peroxide are corrosive when mixed together, and can cause irritation to skin, eyes, and lungs.
Mixing vinegar with baking soda is a popular home cleaning solution, but we’re going to let you in on a secret: it doesn’t work. The two ingredients work as cleaners on their own: baking soda (also known as bicarbonate of soda) can be made into a paste with water and used to clean a bath, and you can soak a shower head in vinegar to get rid of limescale. Mixing the two together isn’t toxic, but all it does is make fizzy bubbles and a useless watery by-product.
How to Clean a Bathtub with Baking Soda
Baking soda isn’t just a useful baking ingredient. It’s great for cleaning too: just mix it with water into a paste, spread it on what you want to clean, let it sit for 15 minutes or so, and wipe away. This works on grouting, tubs, and sinks, but is too abrasive for glass – so switch to a diluted vinegar spray for your shower screen.
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