6 insanely cheap bathroom cleaning hacks every busy homeowner ought to know

Having a beautifully renovated and desirable bathroom is easy with the help of renovation specialists. Nevertheless, the exceptionally beautiful bathroom experience will be ruined, if it is not specklessly clean.

Therefore, unless you plan on employing professional cleaners, keeping the newly renovated bathroom immaculately spotless, is another level of challenge, especially since it is the grossest and most hated household task!

Hence, here are some easy patsy cheap (less than $10) bathroom cleaning hacks, so your family and guests get to enjoy a sparkling clean bathroom, without you spending a ton of money, time and effort on it.

1. Remove embarrassing bathroom mirror splatters and streaks with isopropyl alcohol

Stubborn splatters on the bathroom mirror are a common sight and hard to clean too. Cleaning them up will leave behind a streaky mirror mess too.

The best way to tackle this is to dampen some paper towels or a microfiber cloth with isopropyl alcohol, diluted with water and gently wipe down the mirror.

Aside from leaving your mirror squeaky clean and without messy streaks, it also disinfects the mirror at the same time! If you have not hopped onto the digital newspaper wagon, the old newspapers can also do the same job too.

Cost: 70 per cent Isopropyl alcohol $6-8 per bottle

Tip: Keep the mirror frame and the edges dry to prevent moisture from seeping between the layers. This will cause damage and black spots to appear and once these spots start to appear on your mirror, the mirror silvering has been ruined.

2. Remove mineral buildup from chrome faucet and fixtures with baking soda paste

Over time, calcium deposits will accumulate around the faucets and fixtures, and the ugly limescale  residue will keep them from looking shiny and new. Baking soda, combined with vinegar, is effective against the mineral deposit. It works as a natural stainless steel polish too. Combine 1/2 cup of baking soda with 1/4 cup white vinegar in a container to form a white paste.

Rub the paste onto the faucet and fixtures before letting the paste sit for 15 minutes. Use a cloth or paper towel and vigorously rub the mixture on the calcium residue. Rinse the paste with diluted vinegar and wipe away the loosened residue with a damp paper towel.

Cost: $3.50 ($2 for baking soda and $1.50 for vinegar)

Tip: You can also remove the hard water stains from the chrome fixtures with a slice of lemon.

3. Tackle stubborn soap scum on shower glass with baking soda paste

The nasty, stubborn white chalky residue which cannot be easily removed from the shower glass and tiles is known as soap scum, sometimes referred as lime soap. It is made of calcium stearate and magnesium stearate (among other materials) and is the bane of all homeowners!

This is because ironically the more you shower to keep yourself clean, the shower will be clogging up with hard to remove soap scum residue. To remove the built-up, make a thick baking soda paste with 1 cup of baking soda and 1/4 cup of white vinegar.

Apply the paste on the shower glass with a microfiber cloth or sponge and let it sit for at least 15 minutes. Rinse the paste with diluted vinegar and wipe away the loosened residue with a damp microfiber cloth.

Cost: $3.50 ($2 for baking soda and $1.50 for vinegar)

Tip: Prevent soap scum build-up by using a water repellent solution such as RAINEX, to provide superior water beading coating on the shower glass.

4. Speed clean dingy and mouldy tile grout with bleach pen

The white tile grout, usually turns into brownish, dingy-looking after a few months. When that happens, the easiest way to turn the gross looking grout back to pristine clean is to soak the grout lines with a bleach pen. Leave the bleach solution on the grout lines for a day and wash the solution away with plenty of water.

Cost: $5 for 2 oz per pen

Tip: Prevent dingy grout by making sure the shower walls and floor is dry after every use. Use grout sealant to prevent humidity and moisture from seeping into the porous grout. You can also DIY a bleach pen with cornstarch!

5. Easy clean hard to reach areas with a used toothbrush

Here is a neat trick which I am sure no one has thought of; heat and bend a used toothbrush to make a detail cleaning brush. Before tossing out a used toothbrush, don’t forget its cleaning potential!

Use a lighter to heat up the shank of the toothbrush and carefully bend the shank backwards with a plier to form a right-angled cleaning brush, which is perfect for hard to reach sneaky corners!

Image from Apartment Therapy

Cost: Nothing!

Tip: Instead of heating the used toothbrush with a lighter, boil a pot of water and submerge the used toothbrush for about 15 minutes.

6. Dissolve limescale in the water closet with Harpin power plus

When the limescale creeps into your water closet, it will form brown looking crusty sheets at the bottom of the water closet. As the colour is derived from the iron content in the water, the water closet will look dingy and dirty. However, bleaching agents only remove the colour of the limescale.

Hence, when untreated, the toilet flush will be weakened due to the hard chalky deposit accumulating inside the pipe over time. When that happens, you would need to either spend a considerable number of hours scraping off the stubborn residue, or get Harpic limescale remover to do the job easily!

Case in point, here is how our water closet looks like, after having it soaked in the Harpic Power Plus solution just a little over two hours. The hard to remove limescale deposits are now totally gone!

Cost: $5 per bottle

Tip: Add some DIY fizzy bombs to keep your toilet bowl fresh smelling.  Harpic Powder Bluematic In- Cistern toilet bowl cleaner is very effective in keeping the rim and hard to reach areas clean too.

This article was first published in Renonation.sg.