Monday, September 3, 2012

Soap Scum Buster

I didn't take any pics of the ingredients, but this one is very simple. Our bathtub drain had been plugged up for awhile (I refuse to believe that long hair may have been the cause of this clog!!) so every time we used the shower the water was several inches deep by the time we were done...this made for a nasty soap scum ring around the bathtub as the water slowly, slowly receded. I finally got some drain cleaner and burned out the not-hair that was causing the slow drainage. Soon the water was swirling quickly down the drain, just as water should. However, once I got done being proud of myself for "fixing" this problem, I looked around at the soap scum coated bathtub....ICK!!!! I've tried scrubbing soap scum before, and even with cleaners it's not an easy job. So I quickly googled "homemade soap scum cleaner" and came up with several results...they all basically boiled down to this: 1 part of hot vinegar to 1 part of Dawn dish soap. Ok, I can handle that. I guess the key to this working is for the vinegar to go on hot. I microwaved half a cup of white vinegar for a minute or two, dumped it in an empty spray bottle, added half a cup of Dawn, shook it gently, and went to work. I thoroughly sprayed every inch of that icky bathtub. Most of the recipes I read said it needed to sit for several hours, so I went to finish some other cleaning projects. I came back after an hour or two, and decided to give it a go. I grabbed a clean rag, got it wet, and started scrubbing...well, wiping, really, since the scum all came right off!! It was so sweet!! I had to use Comet cleaner on a few spots to remove some navy blue paint scum (I made the bad decision to rinse out my paint brushes in the bathtub after using navy blue paint.....), but other than that I just used this cleaner on the soap scum ring and it came out beautifully clean!! Here are some before and after pics to prove it. :)


Exhibit A: Icky Soap Scum Ring - EEEWWWWW!!


Exhibit B: Squeaky Clean and Shiny Shower - AAAAAHHHHH. :)


I didn't get a before pic of this end of the tub, but believe me, it was every bit as bad or WORSE than the above pic. Now it's so clean!! Yay!! 

Now, go bust some scum!! :)