31 Days to Green Clean: Cleaning the Toilet Without Harsh Chemicals

This is Day 29 of the 31 Days to Green Clean series.

Oh, the dreaded toilet. I’m not sure there is a person on earth who actually enjoys cleaning their toilet.

I am definitely not an expert on toilet cleaning, but I got several questions about how to deal with ring around the toilet when I asked for your questions, so I wanted to share some of my ideas for cleaning the toilet without using harsh chemicals.

I know there’s no good way to nicely talk about cleaning a toilet, so you’re just going to have to bare with me and and all of the toilet talk. ahem.

Prevention

So, first of all, one thing I have learned is that prevention is the best medicine. I don’t always do a great job of this, but if I can remember to scrub down the toilet bowl every day, or even every other day, as a part of my daily cleaning chores, it makes a big difference it keeping it clean and stain free.

Just sprinkle a little baking soda in and give it a quick once or two around. If you add some essential oils to the baking soda, about 20+ drops, like tea tree oil for it’s anti-bacterial qualities and lemon or another scent that you like, it boosts the cleaning power and adds a nice, clean-smelling scent.

Deep Cleaning

For deeper cleaning, I’ve made a paste out of baking soda and castile soap and used that like a soft scrub, with pretty good success. And recently I tried using cream of tartar, and that worked pretty well too. I just used it by itself, but it might work even better with some vinegar or castile soap (but remember, not together!).

One thing you can do for deeper cleaning is to turn off the water to your toilet using the valve on the back and flush it a few times until most of the water is out of the bowl. Then you can put the paste right onto the bowl and let it sit for a while, 20 minutes or more, before you scrub it off.  Having the water out of the bowl makes the scrubbing easier.

I also want to mention that vinegar is great for removing odors from the bathroom – especially those left by little boys who are still working on their aim. So, if you’re noticing an unwanted scent in your bathroom, use your vinegar and water spray, maybe with some essential oils added in, to remove the scent and leave your bathroom smelling fresh again.

Removing Stains

Finally, if you already have stains in your toilet bowl I have found one thing that takes them off without using any harsh chemicals, but does require some real elbow grease.

If you’re serious about removing your stains without toxic chemicals, put on your cleaning gloves and get a pumice stone and get scrubbing. It’s not fun or glamorous, but it definitely gets the job done.  There are specific pumice stones for cleaning that you can find at the hardware store, or even just one from the drug store for using on your feet will work, but not quite as well, so it will take more scrubbing.

I’ve used the pumice stone to successfully remove tough stains from our toilet and let me tell you, once you’ve scrubbed those stains off, you’re much more motivated to keep them from coming back by using the prevention method I mentioned above!

Do you have a green and natural way to keep your toilet clean and stain-free?

Go here to read all the posts in the 31 Days to Green Clean series.

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