Home / Housekeeping / General / Surprising Ways To Clean A BathtubSurprising Ways To Clean A Bathtub  43 Comments    Print     EmailThink your old, grungy bathtub is beyond repair? Then this is the tip is for you! If nothing seems to bring it to a shine, you can try spraying a layer of oven cleaner on the surface.I have an old bottle of Easy-Off in my chemical crate and the back label reads:…is ideal for barbecue grills, NON-ALUMINUM and NON-CHROME pots, pans, skillets, fryers, drip pans, etc.Also cleans surfaces of porcelain enamel, stainless steel, undecorated ceramics, and concrete.For white porcelain surfaces that are hopelessly stained and you don’t have the cash for a refinishing job, I found this does do a good job lifting grime. Make sure you open the bathroom window first to ventilate the room as much as possible and wear a face mask if you find the fumes overwhelming.You will see the foam ooze out black and brown grime. Let it work for a few hours before rinsing off.

The chemicals are very harsh so I would only use this if nothing else works. I did use this myself once on a 20 year old tub that was deeply stained and it worked like a charm. I can’t say if it damaged the finish at all or if it had any undesirable long term results but as a non-expert, I didn’t notice any ill effects.I don’t know if this is safe to use on colored porcelain, but you can test a small area if you’d like to find out.Tip: If it’s a plastic or acrylic bathtub that has hard to remove stains, try soaking laundry detergent in it for a few hours–this can do wonders too!Best Tires For Suv CrossoverUpdate: Here’s a cautionary note sent in from a reader:I used three fourths of a can (Easy Off) making sure every inch was was covered and it didn’t work at all and it took off all the color on my new brass colored drains on the tub, making them all turn black.Patio Furniture 1960

Although none of the hardware discolored when I used this method, it’s something to be aware of (test a small area first just to be sure).Kickin SoakHere’s a “miracle paste” you can try plus details for using a laundry detergent soak.Fill the tub with hot water and add 2 to 3 cups of powdered laundry detergent. Drain then wipe down with a hot, wet sponge.Laundry detergents that work well for this task:Tide, Ivory Snow, Cheer or any detergent that has enzymes.Places That Buy Used Laptops In MichiganMiracle PasteIf things are particularly grimy, here’s a paste you can try*:Make a paste with baking soda and bleach, then apply to wet sponge to scrub off grime.Rinse well then voila! To scrub down the shower walls and tiles, use the bleach and baking soda paste with a nylon scrubber, rinse well.*Don’t use if you’ve applied ammonia or ammonia based solutions to the tub.DecalsPeeling off old decals reveals a sticky mess or dark dried up glue underneath.

Here are a few different methods to remove them, get that gunk up and surfaces back to a shine.If the decals don’t pull off easily, fill the tub with very hot water about 1″ deep with a cup of white vinegar poured in, soak for several minutes until the water has cooled enough to comfortably put your hands in (but still very warm). Then take a plastic scraper (or old credit card) and gently try prying an edge of the decal up and then pulling it off completely. Drain the water and dry the surface.You could also try heating each decal with a hair dryer and then pulling it up once the glue has melted underneath. *DO NOT DO THIS* if there is any water in the tub! I feel silly just typing that–but–you know.How To Remove The ResidueMethod #1Cover each gunk spot with a paper towel, then saturate the towel with vinegar. Press the towel firmly on each spot to make sure the gunk is soaking in the vinegar. Leave alone for a few hours (keep pouring on vinegar if the paper towel starts drying) then remove and rub each spot gently with baking soda and a wet cloth.

The gunk should wipe up easily.Method #2Rub in petroleum jelly and leave it sit for an hour. Then take a hot, wet cloth and work the jelly in and then wipe up.Method #3Slather mayonnaise on each spot, cover with plastic wrap and let it sit for a few hours. Wipe away mayo and if some residue is still stubborn–rub gently with some baking soda.Method #4Make a thick paste of cream of tartar and hydrogen peroxide, slather it on decal residue. Cover with plastic wrap and allow it to sit for an hour. Then take a wet cloth and work in the paste until residue is gone. Print     Email Published: February 19, 2007Updated: August 7, 2012Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert and advice columnist. She’ll be here every other week helping to answer your filthiest questions. Check the Squalor Archive for assistance. Are you still dirty? My husband and I rented out our basement “mother-in-law apartment” to a friend of ours for the past few years. He recently purchased his own home and is in the process of moving out.

We have already rented the apartment out, and the new tenant will be here in a few days.In the meantime, I had the opportunity to go into his bathroom to assess its condition. He said he cleaned his shower, but it is filthy. There is soap scum and mold everywhere! It is really disgusting, and I’m not looking forward to hours of scrubbing. Is there anything available that will help me to remove the buildup? It is REALLY BAD! I read your mold-removal technique, and I have bleach and tea-tree oil at home, and I plan on trying that first. Another question: Can I use them together?When this question arrived in my inbox, I immediately OOFed at the situation this poor lady found herself in—somehow, the fact that it was a friend who’d made such a horrible mess of her bathroom upped the level of nastiness. And then, a few days later, my husband was emailed a photo that caused him to let out a high-pitched “EEEEEEWWWWWWW” and hold his phone away from him, as if the pic itself might cause an infection of the eyes.

When I asked what was so awful, he said, “I don’t think you can see this. It might actually cause you to die.”Here’s what happened: A mutual friend of ours was helping a couple we all know move out of their apartment. He snapped a photo of their empty bathroom, which had apparently not ever been cleaned in several years. It was a horror show. The tub was the color of old butter. It sort of looked like maybe it had been spread with old butter, in fact. The shower walls were covered in mold, mildew, and a layer of soap scum so thick that it was clearly visible even in the crappy camera-phone photo. It was so vile, oh my God.And so, given these two events, I figured that while I’ve covered bathroom-cleaning in this space before, it was still worth putting together a more comprehensive post on what to do when confronted with a truly nasty sitch. Let’s start by reviewing the existing literature. These posts tend to address one very specific subject, though some are broader than others.

Part of the reason I was excited to take this question on is that I realized that, while I’ve spent a lot of time talking to you about what products to use when it comes to getting your bathroom clean and lovely, I’ve not dedicated a lot of space to some of the tools that can really help the process along.I do, however, often mention rubber gloves. I’m doing so again: When working with the kinds of cleaning products that we’re going to talk about today, you absolutely must wear protective gloves. Opening the window is also really important—fumes, you see. The thing is that the gloves serve another purpose in that they keep your flesh from having to make contact with the nastiness you’re trying to clean. The gloves make things so much more humane.Because we’re talking about shower walls and a tub that have developed a fairly thick buildup, some sloughing power will also greatly help matters. A scrub brush will let you scour walls and grout; my old pal the Dobie Pad is another great option, especially if your shower is fiberglass, as it scours without causing scratching;

for straight tile or porcelain, a Scotch-Brite Scouring Pad will also go a long way in scrubbing scum away.Finally, get yourself a squeegee. This Cleret number comes highly rated on Amazon and is under $15, so it won’t break the bank. The squeegee is going to help you to get your shower walls—and, if you have them, your glass shower doors—extra spotless-looking. The squeegee will help if you also notice that the bathroom walls are nasty; use an all-purpose spray cleaner in concert with the squeegee to easily wipe away aerosol-effect buildup. They’re also helpful when it comes to doing the final rinsing-away of all those caustic cleaning products I’m about to tell you to use.Put the tea-tree oil down. That stuff is pricey, and it isn’t going to be powerful enough to touch the mess your tenant-friend left behind for you to clean up. To answer your question, though, yes, you can mix bleach and tea-tree oil. But don’t: There’s no reason to do so. The deal with tea-tree oil is that it’s a natural alternative to bleach.

If you’re down with using bleach, then there’s no reason to bother with the expensive and weaker alternative.But I actually don’t want you to use bleach, either. But I actually recommend something gnarlier. Guys, I love this X-14 stuff so much. I don’t know what it’s made of (and I don’t actually really want to know), but oh, man, it works so well. I’m not the only one who feels this way either! I mean, look at these Amazon reviews. But it’s nice to have choices in life, so as much as I want you to share in my love of X-14, there are certainly other options. One product that gets similarly high marks from Amazon users is Zep No-Scrub Mold and Mildew Stain Remover. I haven’t used this particular offering from Zep, but I have used other products, and they are quite good—and quite heavy-duty. So I feel perfectly confident in recommending this to you.The last product to mention—though I want to note that there are many, many good cleaning products out there that I’m not including, because otherwise we’d be here all day—is the Magic Eraser.

Now, the Magic Eraser is not a thing you’re going to use for any of your heavy-duty cleaning; rather, it’s what you should get if, after all the scrubbing and squeegee-ing and inhaling of fumes, there is minor staining left behind. The Magic Eraser will be the ticket for those little discolored spots.Soap scum is different from mold and mildew. In its way, it’s worse—I find it way more stubborn to remove than its furry green friends. But I have a trick! (Of course I do.) I’ve shared this before, but I feel like I’ve always sort of buried it, and it deserves a place in the sun because it’s so weird and it works so well: Grab a dryer sheet, get it wet, and use it to scrub scummy glass, tile, or fiberglass walls and tub interiors. But it totally works. This is also a technique that benefits from having a squeegee on hand; the scum will loosen from the surface it has adhered to, and the squeegee will help you to scrape it away.My only concern with the dryer-sheet technique is that, in this particular situation, it may be cumbersome and require a huge amount of work on your part to cover the entirety of the scummed-up area.

In that case, try Bar Keepers Friend Cooktop Cleaner combined with a scrub sponge; when I was putting all this together, I recalled a post I’d read years ago in which a blogger tested out a bunch of ways of removing soap-scum buildup, and the BKF was his top choice. If you start down the dryer-sheet path and are like, “Oh damn, this is gonna take foreverrrrrr,” try the alternatives to save yourself some work.When it comes to cleanup, you’ll really want to mind the “work from the top, down” rule. Whatever you clean off the shower walls will end up in the tub, so if you start with the tub, you’ll end up wanting to kill yourself for your lack of foresight. The other thing is that you’ll probably want to wear shoes of some sort while you work on the shower walls, since you’ll have to stand in the tub, and you don’t really want all that mess (or those cleaning products) making contact with your feet.If you get in there and find that this process requires many, many man-hours, here’s a shortcut that may help you get the tub cleaner, faster: Fill it up with hot-hot-hot water and add a scoop or two of OxiClean.

Let that sit for 30 to 60 minutes while you work on the sink, toilet, or bathroom walls, and then drain the water and scrub away. The soak will loosen a lot of the grime and scum, and should make the cleaning process a bit easier.A similar technique can be used on tile floors. Mix a gallon of water with a scoop of OxiClean and pour it in a thin layer on the floor. (Don’t flood the joint!) Taking it in sections heading toward the door, work the Oxi solution into the tile and grout with your scrub brush, then allow the solution to sit for 30-60 minutes before mopping up the water with dry rags or a sponge mop. The grout may not immediately look brightened, but as it dries, you’ll notice a HUGE difference, all without the agony of scrubbing with a toothbrush. Jolie Kerr is Deadspin’s resident cleaning expert and the author of the book My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag … And Other Things You Can’t Ask Martha (Plume). .Adequate Man is Deadspin’s new self-improvement blog, dedicated to making you just good enough at everything.