OK, it’s rub-A-dub time for the shower and tub! There is nothing like a sparkly, shiny shower and tub. Just stepping in makes you want to bathe! Imagine if you will… shampoo and conditioner is easy to get to, body wash has a terrific aroma, mmmm-spa like!
Over the course of multiple showers foot prints get planted in the base, soap scum and gels get splattered on the glass or shower curtain. Definitely, the splatter will spray on the tiles. And soap and residue finds its way on to the containers, secretly dwelling underneath, creating a little of muckety-muck.
Mold and mildew can grow on the bottle and underneath the container, leading to bacteria and germs. It doesn’t take long for this to happen either! So the next time you use any of the containers that you have in the shower, please investigate to make sure you have nothing growing on the outside.
Regular cleaning maintenance is definitely a must in the shower and tub. Next, let’s talk about the shower curtain. I encourage you to remove your shower curtain, if that is what you have and stick it in the washing machine. Do this once a week or every other week. It kind of depends on how many people are using your shower.
Add a quarter cup of the Odobon, in with your regular detergent for a delightful scent, to freshen things up and kill bacteria.. If it gives you the heebie-jeebies to remove, frequency of cleaning, or even replacing, will certainly help.

A dirty shower curtain can contaminate the entire bathroom. The dirt, grime and buildup on the shower curtain gets trapped, if it doesn’t get cleaned regularly. Once the humidity from the shower hits, you will breathe in, up into your nose, the bacteria. Therefore, it’s important to make sure that you’re cleaning it regularly!

Shower, tiles and bathtubs

 

Rinse down the shower walls and fixtures. Let’s look at the areas where mold occurs. The shower collects mold and mildew around the caulking and the bottom of the shower basin. I prefer to use Clorox Clinging Bleach Gel. It’s thick, and it stays put. I would recommend towel drying these areas first to make sure the bleach gel does not get diluted.

Allow the gel cleaner to dwell for about 10 mins on there so that it has time to creep in and kill off the mold. Work on another area of the bathroom while you wait. Just a quick note: bleach will pit (break down the metal) so you do not want it to be dwelling on metal areas.
If you need to clean the grout and between the tiles, take a toothbrush style brush, take some of the product and go in between the tiles to brighten them up. This will definitely get rid of mold and mildew. However, if the mold and mildew have got in behind the caulking, you may have to replace it.
That’s why it’s important to maintain these areas, as they are prone to mold and mildew. Once mold gets behind the caulking, it’s more than likely behind the wall and on the rest of the shower..
Many people use bar soap, creams, moisturizers, facial products, shaving creams, etc. However, they can be troublesome to get off the tile or from around the bathtub. For this, you are going to need a degreaser.

Bleach which will lighten and kill, mold, and mildew. It will kill germs and bacteria, but it will not degrease it. Most of the time you can spray bleach and go back after it sits and you still feel a coating. This is soap scum. Worst-case scenario, you may have to chisel to get it off. However, thankfully there’s a product called KRUD KUTTER.

KRUD KUTTER DESERVES A CROWN

You will hear me mention this product from time to time. It is one of my favorites. It’s an excellent degreaser and works great in the bathroom. Spray it on, let it dwell, then use a green scrubby or the 0000 steel wool, and it comes right off.
Your tiles will be nice, shiny and sleek again and the bathtub porcelain nice and smooth.
Soap Scum
A good way to tell if you have soap scum, sometimes you can see it when the light reflects on it, especially if there’s a lot of buildup. However, if you take a dry microfiber towel and rub it along the wall, it will get stuck or skip along. You can feel it with your bare hand as well. There are a lot of things that are lurking in this kind of buildup, namely bacteria and germs.
Believe it or not, the soap scum will hold hair, skin cells, also dirt debris. It truly is mucky, so you want to remove this! The same with the shaving cream, and other things that get on glass and walls. They also accumulate on your shower curtain. That’s why it’s important to keep these regularly cleaned and maintained.

Glass Showers

For glass shower doors, I like to use the 0000 Steel Wool Pad.
If the glass has turned cloudy, but hasn’t been etched by neglect (this is a process that happens when the glass actually becomes damaged past the point of no return) I will use some Lysol Toilet Bowl Cleaner here. This is to be done with caution!
You do not want this chemical to come in contact with any metal parts, rubbery parts or silicone, but it will do wonders on the glass. First pre-wet the glass then add the LTBC moving upwards, from the bottom to the top. I recommend you use rubber gloves with this chemical. It has hydrochloric acid in it.

Nowadays with glass and walls people use squeegees, pulling water which collects at the bottom. That’s why often the bottom is far more cloudy than the top. Because when you are taking a shower, the more water sprays downward, that is why more residue collects at the bottom of the shower. So I start with the thickest and heaviest of build up and work my way up. Being very careful not to touch any metal of the plastic pieces on the glass.
It is very important to rinse thoroughly, and I would even take a microfiber with a little soap on it and go back over it to make sure that it’s all rinsed off. I hit the metal fixtures with the 0000 Steel Wool and a couple of drops of Dawn Professional Multi-Surface Heavy Duty Degreaser. This will sparkle them right up!
If you have an overlay of hard water deposits on your fixtures in the bathroom, a super word of caution. I will use the Lysol Toilet Bowl Cleaner with the steel wool on these fixtures, clean it and rinse immediately.
Do your scrub a dub, and rinse off immediately! You don’t want a reaction to metal. Nowadays, bathroom fixtures are chrome stainless steel, nickel plated.
There are other fixtures, the black fixtures, the brass fixtures, those types of things you should check the manufacturers’ cleaning instructions.
Be super-delicate when applying chemicals to these?
I do a thorough rinsing throughout the entire shower, making sure I rinsed away the gel bleach.
PLEASE DO NOT MIX CHEMICALS !!!
It is important not to mix chemicals in the bathroom. It is a small tight space of humidity without really good ventilation and you don’t want any fumes, irritating or messing with your breathing or your head!
Now with my degreaser KRUD KUTTER. In severe bathtub cases, believe it or not, I use some liquid oven cleaner. Dawn Professional Multi-Surface Heavy Duty Degreaser makes a terrific heavy duty pro degreaser. A degreaser will break down the oils, the soap, the shaving cream, the moisturizers, so they can easily go down the drain and not stay stuck on the walls.

Give a liberal spray down, and you guessed it from the bottom to the top, scrubbing until it’s nice and sleek. For troubled areas and in between grout or around fixtures where muckety-muck and mold and mildew have built up. Use a small brush to get in and around the shower nozzle. Inspect this from time to time, removing any mold, mildew, orange, yellow, any kind of crust so your sprayers work terrifically.

The orange and yellow coloring that appears on the shower curtain on your toiletry containers, or in the cracks and crevices of tile or wall. This is a not a friendly bacterium usually caused by bodily oils, dead skin cells in extreme cases, it could be your in a older home/rental, it could actually be the pipes and or rust that leaves behind deposits.

How do I rinse my walls in my shower? Great question if you don’t have a shower and a hose. I recommend getting a big giant cup, filling it with water and splash all around.
A shower and a hose really take the tedious repetition of this away. Plus, it’s easier to just rinse down that area and the shower curtain when you’re finished bathing.

THE DRAIN

From time to time you must de-hair your drain. Hair buildup, whiskers or shavings all go down in the drain. Oil moisturizers, conditioners, toothpaste can create a little puddle, which means now your feet will slosh around with what you just washed off your body. I actually remove the drain stopper with one of my little brushes and clean around the inside edges of the drain. For those of you who have a bathtub and you have that overfill drain right underneath the spigot, take that off and detail clean it.

Let me advise you in advance. This is going to be pretty gross. Most people don’t clean there, but it is a haven for mold, mildew and yucky- yuck. However, getting to the drain is usually pretty easy. For the fixtures, just unscrew. For those of you who have a more modern bathroom the drain in the shower may actually be pretty large, which is really nice when you take it off you can just squeegee all the yuck down there because the piping can actually handle a little more than the older piping, which is super narrow.

Please don’t forget the ceiling. It is always a good idea to wipe down the ceiling, the light fixtures, your shower faucet, even your shower curtain rod, especially that little area under the shower curtain rod where the tile starts. If you can’t quite seem to figure out how to get the ceiling easy, here’s a tip, if you have a Swiffer stick mop you can take your microfiber towel, pre-wet and spray with some of your degreaser, plug into the holes and just mop the ceiling. This will keep down bacteria and germs from up there as well. Remember, this is a humid area. Water is spraying everywhere.

RECAP

For those of you who are looking for a frequent or daily maintenance of your shower, bathing area, the OdoBan Disinfectant is a terrific spray to use. Spray the walls, the tub, the drain, the shower curtain. Not only does it smell great, but it will prevent mold and mildew. It is a disinfectant and sanitizer and it doesn’t leave behind any film or residue. This is not to replace your more thorough cleaning, but it will prolong the in between, especially after all that hard work of getting it cleaned.
So in the shower, I use KRUD KUTTER as a degreaser.
I use the Clorox Cleaning Bleach Gel, for the removal of mold and mildew and stains, the 0000 steel wool, small bristle brushes, and a green scrubby. I use the Lysol Toilet Bowl Cleaner on the glass when there are heavy water deposits, and neglect. And a screwdriver for removing the drain covers, also replacing the shower curtain when needed. Just a side note. Be careful with the green scrubby as it could scratch, believe it or not. It is more abrasive than the 0000 steel wool, but works great on the inside of a bathtub, especially if there’s a lot of buildups.
If you have a bathroom area that is not very well ventilated, keep your shower door open and or even get a little fan that can move some air and dry it out quicker. This will also help keep back the mold and mildew from growing.
If you have a collection of toiletries that you do not use on a regular, pull them out of the shower, so they’re not continually getting wet and splashed this will keep the growth of bacteria, mold, and mildew from growing on the inside of the lids and around the bottoms.
I would love to hear your questions comments or what you use that makes your cleaning easier. Please subscribe and certainly share with someone it may help them as well.

Happy cleaning..
Susannah