Toilet cleaning is sometimes the household chore you want to avoid. However, it is a necessary chore since the toilet bowl contains bacteria and stains that can be harmful to your family in the long term. Cleaning your toilet may also be hazardous to your health since the products required in the activity mostly contain chemicals. Fortunately, there are hacks to remove toilet stains in a more straightforward and less harmful way.
Use Homemade Cleaning Products
There are a lot of toilet cleaning products available on the market. However, the chemical use and shopping inconvenience may push you to try and find other ways to remove toilet stains. Fortunately, there are a lot of household materials that you can use as a substitute for the potentially hazardous cleaning chemicals for your toilet.
Soak Messy Stains in Vinegar
Vinegar is an everyday necessity in the kitchen, with its many uses for different recipes. Only a few people know how effective it is in decimating germs and stains in the toilet. White vinegar doubles not only as an effective toilet cleaner but also safer chlorine compared to other chemical cleaning products.
To eliminate toilet stains, you may soak a paper towel or thick tissue roll and place in on top of the messy stains. You need to leave the tissue overnight to let the vinegar do its work. In the morning, you will be able to scrub off the stains with ease or flush the toilet. Vinegar is also useful in removing caulk and grout.
Substitute Borax for Bleaching Products
Borax is a boron compound that dissolves in water. Borax has its many uses for your laundry or teeth bleaching, as well as cleaning your toilet. The cleaning product works more effectively when added with vinegar. Using your toilet brush, you may apply the borax and vinegar mix on stains to remove them. Flush the toilet to give stains a rinse, and you can watch the water take the stain down with it.
For the toilet stains that you failed to clean despite being brushed off, you may use Borax paste. You have to combine enough vinegar on a lot of borax to get a thick paste. You also need to drain your bowl of water and cut off the water flow to avoid dissolving the adhesive. Spread the borax on the stains and let it sit for 20 minutes. Using a nylon brush, you can scrub off the paste and flush to rinse.
Sanitize Your Toilet With Baking Soda
Baking soda, similar to vinegar, is a household item with the reputation as an alternative toilet cleaner. When mixed with vinegar, it can clear hard water stains quickly. You need to pour vinegar into the toilet water and mix it using a toilet brush. After two minutes, you can add baking soda and more vinegar, creating a fizzing action. After about 10 minutes of mixing, let the solution sit for 30 minutes until it manages to remove the stains. You can flush to rinse the solution and scrub off any remaining stains with a nylon brush.
Bleach Doubles as Toilet Stain Remover
Chlorine bleach is an effective and common way to clean your toilet. Bleach can obliterate any germ, stain, or rust around your toilet bowl. Despite being a potent cleaning agent, bleach can be harmful to your health when misused. Pour bleach powder into the toilet bowl and let it settle for about two hours. When you flush your toilet, you will find that it is stain-free.
Disinfect Your Bowl With Hydrogen Peroxide
Hydrogen peroxide may not be able to remove the stains on a toilet altogether, but it proves to be a useful germ eraser. A half cup of hydrogen peroxide around the toilet bowl will help disinfect your bowl after 40 minutes. You need to flush the toilet to rinse the hydrogen peroxide down the drain, along with the germs and stains.
Alternative Cleaning Materials
While the homemade cleaning products are great solutions for those who do not want to use chemical cleaners, there are also other options you can take to make sure that you get rid of toilet stains. Here are some of the household items that only a few people know can help keep the toilet clean and neat.
Sandpaper
The 0000-grade sandpaper will help you remove stubborn water stains in the toilet by scrubbing. As itself or with plain water, sandpaper can give you a non-chemical cleaner that will keep your bowl neat. However, you must always use steel wool sandpaper to prevent scratches on the toilet surface. It is also essential for you to avoid losing patience while scrubbing stains that are difficult to remove. Rubbing too much may damage your toilet bowl.
Cola
Rust rings around the toilet are challenging to scrub off. As a solution, you may use a can of cola to remove them. A lot of people will find that cola is a weird solution for toilet cleaning and will wonder how it gained the reputation, but the beverage contains acids and carbonation that can easily dissolve messy stains. You can pour a can on the rim of the toilet to make sure that it reaches every part of the bowl. In an hour, the acid will break down the toilet stains. Then, you can use a toilet scrub to remove the mess and flush to rinse the area.
Pumice Stone
Pumice stone is an unexpected cleaning material for toilet stains, but its effectiveness is undeniable. You can soak the pumice stone in hot water. You can then use the stone the same way you use a toilet brush. You need to make sure that both the toilet and the rock are wet to avoid scratching the surface. With a gentle pumice stone scrub and a flush, the toilet stains will go away.
Cleaning your toilet is a tough but necessary task. Over the years, however, people did experiments to find more straightforward solutions to remove stains. While the experiments led them to everyday household items like vinegar and borax or unexpected things like a can of coke and sandpaper, it is always a welcome sight to know that you can hack your way out of doing the chore.
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