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If cleaning the bathroom ever shows up on your chore list, you probably generally wait until you’ve crossed off all your other to-dos before tackling it. This strategy may not always be the best as then the bathroom tends to get put off or your tired and low energy by the time you finally get around to doing it.
Instead of dreading the bathroom, and never getting it quite as clean as you should, you should try using these tips to help save you time and energy, as well as help you get those bathroom things you might have been avoiding cleaning spotless too.
Razor Blades
Generally speaking, disposable razors (a decent brand) are more cost-effective and work (mostly) as well as the non-disposable kind, particularly since most disposable razors cost less or equal to non-disposable razor refills. You can get even further value out of your razors by sharpening them regularly. This is ultra-easy to do since all you need is a pair of old jeans.
Lemon
Hard water stains are totally a pain to get rid of. Your typical cleaner (despite swearing it gets those stains off with ease) usually doesn’t put a dent in the ones on your fixtures, or at best, just smears them around. A simple lemon, however, can succeed where heavy-duty cleaners fail! Just cut it in half and rub it over the stains. They will disappear!
Toothbrush Holders
Toothbrush holders spend much of their time in varying degrees of wet. Even when dry, they are still subjected to the heat and humidity of a bathroom during and after shower time.
These conditions can cause bacteria to grow in your holders. The easiest way to solve this is just periodically popping the holder in the dishwasher. If you don’t like the idea of putting the holder in the dishwasher, here are some other ideas.
Toothbrush Storage
Storing toothbrushes can be a hassle and can even create more things to clean. If you don’t store them in a holder, you risk making a mess on the counter or cabinet shelf, and if you do store them in a holder, you have just one more kitchen item to clean.
Instead, you can modify your medicine cabinet to hold those toothbrushes and keep them out of sight and the bathroom a little cleaner.
Toothbrush
Whether you tuck your toothbrush in your medicine cabinet or keep it in a toothbrush holder, you do need to regularly clean and sanitize your toothbrush.
There are several effective ways to clean your toothbrush, including boiling water and alcohol. Check out this article for how and when to clean that toothbrush.
Double Rail
If you find you have trouble keeping all your shower supplies organized and out of the way, or all your kid’s bathroom toys wrangled, there is a simple solution. Install another shower rod on the opposite side of the shower and line it with waterproof baskets. You can then put whatever shower accessories you need them and they will stay out of the way and organized.
Other Storage
It’s important to have a place to store all your bathroom essentials. Although cabinets are the obvious solution, they may not be practical for all your bathroom accessories, or there may not be enough cabinet space in your bathroom to store everything you need to. Spice racks are great storage solutions for bottles and other bathroom products and can be easily installed on the walls.
Shower Curtain
To get your shower curtain cleaner than it’s been since you bought it, and to extend its life, wash it with some baking soda, and then add some vinegar during the rinse cycle. This way you can also clean your washing machine with vinegar.
Make sure you don’t put both in at once or you may not get the result you want. Also, don’t use the dryer for your shower curtain. Just hang to dry.
Towels
Finding good towels can be difficult, the reasonably priced ones aren’t good quality and the good quality ones are overpriced. When you do find towels you love, you want to keep them forever. But over time, towels lose their signature fluff from repeated use. Luckily, you can get that fluff back with this easy method and extend the life of your favorite towels.
Soap Scum
Soap scum is the bane of all showers. It is so difficult to avoid and a pain to get rid of. Plus, it just looks gross. However, there are simple and easy tricks that will help you combat soap scum before it starts. All you need to do is apply a layer of baby oil to your shower tiles to keep soap scum away. Just use a thin layer to lightly coat the tile, though. You don’t want to drench it.
Grout
Even if you clean your bathroom frequently, the grout may be a challenge. It discolors over time, and since it’s porous, it’s a great place for bacteria to grow, so it is really important that it does actually get clean. There is a multitude of ways to clean grout, and how dirty your grout is, determines which method works best for you. Check it out.
Get Rid of Odors and Smells
You may notice your trash can doesn’t smell as fresh as it once did when you bought it. There is an easy and effective solution to this problem, and it doesn’t involve buying a new trash can. Just sprinkle some baking soda into your trash can. All you need is a thin layer, and the baking soda (a known odor neutralizer) will take care of those smells in no time.
Shower Head
To save yourself time and hassle, don’t scrub the shower head if it has hard water stains on it. Instead, just wrap a baggy filled with vinegar around it and let it sit overnight.
The vinegar will dissolve the hard water build up, leaving that shower head like new when you go to take your morning shower. This trick requires almost no effort from you and works better than scrubbing ever could.
Make-Up
Keeping make-up organized can be a hassle, particularly if you need to dig through a drawer, bag, or box to find what you are looking for on a regular basis. To help keep things organized and make it easy for you to find and store your makeup without taking up a lot of drawer space, go ahead and use a magnet board. Just attach little magnets to the back of each item.
Tiny Metal Storage
Bobby pins scatter and seem to breed if you let them. If you don’t have a good storage place for them (or even if you do), they end up in the strangest places. The floor, the toothbrush holder, in your brush… The easier way to keep them all where they should be is to put a magnetic strip on your bathroom wall or inside a cabinet door. This way anything small and metal will be cleverly organized and stay in place.
Homemade Recipes
When possible, homemade cleaning recipes are preferable to the store-bought variety for three reasons. First, they usually consist of things you already have in your home, saving you time and hassle. Second, they are much less expensive than the commercial brand, saving you money. And third, they are far safer for both you and the environment.
Towel Storage
If you have no good place to store your towels, or they are stored in an open area, try using a wine rack to keep them neat and organized.
Portable wine racks allow you to store your towels wherever you need. Just roll the towels up and place on the rack. It will look classy and keep your towels totally organized and neat!
Shower Curtain
Shower curtains and liners need to be cleaned regularly to keep them free of mildew and mold. Even the cheap plastic ones can be cleaned in the washer, but to help keep them clean between washings just soak them in some saltwater for several hours. You should even do this with new shower curtains before their first wash.
Floors
To get the floors truly clean, you don’t want to go straight at them with a mop. Make sure you sweep up first, or better yet, vacuum. Sweeping or vacuuming can get all the loose debris and surface dust that the mop isn’t good at getting. This will let your mop clean the actual floors and get all that stuff the broom or vacuum can’t.
Toilet Seat
When you clean your toilet, you probably clean around the seat, but have you thought of actually removing the seat? The picture above shows exactly why you should when you clean that toilet. There is probably some unsightly gunk there, and it could even be causing a smell. Here’s how you really get that toilet completely clean.
Toilet Brush
You may overlook cleaning your cleaning supplies pretty regularly, but don’t make the problem worse by putting your wet, just-in-the-toilet toilet brush right back inside its holder. This practice is just asking for germs and mold to build up. Instead, prop the arm under the toilet seat and let the brush drip dry over the toilet bowl. Once dry, you can put the brush back in its holder.
De-Fogging Mirrors
One of the biggest pains, when you get out of the shower, is having your bathroom mirror all fogged up. Even if you wipe it off (which creates streaks), it ends up fogging up again. However, there is an unlikely solution. It may seem completely counter-intuitive to put shaving cream on your mirror to help you see, but this trick actually works. Check it out.
Tidbit Storage
Mason jars are good for a variety of things, and one of them is storage. Using these cute little jars to keep small items will not only help with organization, but it will also add a bit of charming decoration to your bathroom. You would actually be surprised at the number of things you can use empty jars for. Organizing things, though, is definitely on the top of the list.
Air Flow
Don’t close your shower door completely once you finish your shower. If you have a shower you can do this with, keep the sliding doors in the middle, letting air come in from both sides, which will help dry out the shower more quickly, thus decreasing the chance of mildew and mold. Likewise, if you have a shower curtain, you can do the same thing.
Break-Time
Don’t think you have to constantly be moving and cleaning when it’s time to get that bathroom clean. In fact, wiping cleaner away too quickly could result in a less clean bathroom. Spray the surfaces, use your cleaner in the bathtub, sinks, and toilet, then step away for 5 to 15 minutes, while the cleaner sits. Have a snack, check your mail, whatever. Then, you can come back and wipe away the cleaner.
