Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Cleaning Nerd is Back!

Ok, I said I would update my cleaning experience on the bathroom. I am just a nerd. I loved it. It was a little more work than usual, mostly because my bathroom was so bad. Yep I just admitted it. We let it go. I didn’t hassle Adam to get it done, mostly because I wanted to see what this stuff would do to a really dirty bathroom. To my great surprise it did a wonderful job. If you can get past the smell of Vinegar then it is great. I didn’t add any nice smelling stuff to it, I wanted it to be hard core cleaner with no fluff and it was. I have to say inhaling vinegar is much better then the bleach or heavy chemical that I normally use on my bathroom. The trick I found was to rinse the tub and shower with hot water, then spray all over. Go back and spray in sections and wipe or in my case scrub, if you can see the grim is not coming off, spray more and keep doing it until it does. I figure once I get a good cleaning then I can spray the walls daily when I am done showering and that will keep them good until the next deep cleaning. With the tub, you know the black ring that forms. Well it forms, I used the cleaner and found it wasn’t enough so I sprinkled Baking Soda and it worked magic on the tub. My sinks and toilet sparkled. So I have decided I will continue to keep cleaning with my green supplies. Here are some more recipes that I have used and found to be great!
Bathroom Cleaners:

Toilet Bowl Cleaners:
A) Baking Soda and Vinegar: Sprinkle baking soda into the bowl, then squirt with vinegar and scour with a toilet brush. Cleans and deodorizes.
B)1 cup borax, 1/2 cup white vinegar. Flush to wet the sides of the bowl. Sprinkle the borax around the toilet bowl, then spray with vinegar. Leave for several hours or overnight before scrubbing with a toilet brush.
4) Denture tablets are an excellent substitute for toilet cleaner. Drop two tablets into the bowl and clean as you would with toilet cleaner.


Tub And Tile Cleaners:
A) Baking Soda. Sprinkle baking soda like you would scour powder. Rub with a damp sponge. Rinse thoroughly.
B) Vinegar and Baking Soda. To remove film buildup on bathtubs, apply vinegar full-strength to a sponge and wipe. Next, use baking soda as you would scour powder. Rub with a damp sponge and rinse thoroughly with clean water.
C) Vinegar. Vinegar removes most dirt without scrubbing and doesn't leave a film. Use 1/4 cup (or more) vinegar to 1 gallon water.

Plumbing Fixtures:
1) To clean stainless steel, chrome, fiberglass, ceramic, porcelain or enamel fixtures, dissolve 2 tbsp baking soda in 1 qt of water. Wipe on fixtures then rinse.
2) Vinegar and Paper Towels. Hard lime deposits around faucets can be softened for easy removal by covering the deposits with vinegar-soaked paper towels. Leave the paper towels on for about one hour before cleaning. Leaves chrome clean and shiny.

Shower Heads:
1) Metal Shower Heads:
To remove deposits which may be clogging your metal shower head, combine 1/2 cup white vinegar and one quart water. Then completely submerge the shower head and boil 15 minutes.
2) Plastic Shower Heads:
Combine 1 pint white vinegar and 1 pint hot water. Completely submerge the shower head and soak for about one hour.

Rust Stain and Hard Water Deposit Remover:
Apply full-strength vinegar or lemon juice and let stand until spot disappears, rinse. Repeat if necessary.

Mildew Remover:
Dissolve half-cup vinegar with half-cup borax in warm water.

Lime Deposits:
White vinegar

Borax you can find at the grocery store in the cleaning isle it is BORAX (sodium borate): A natural mineral that kills mold and bacteria. An alternative to bleach, it deodorizes, removes stains and boosts the cleaning power of soap.

1 comment:

Piper said...

LOVE it! Thanks for the tip about Borax as well... I would love to be a cleaning nerd and I think you may have just given me the instructions and tools I needed!