Your mother-in-law is coming over tomorrow, and that means every inch of your home must be spotless. Nothing can be out of place.
Exhausted, you trudge your tired feet over to the shower to clean the doors and remove the untidied toiletries.
But there is no cleaner left! Can you clean your shower doors with a vinegar solution instead?
Vinegar can clean glass shower doors, as well as shower tiles. You will need to use vinegar along with a soft scrub brush or another scrubbing tool and you’ll be able to clean your glass shower doors with ease.
A spray bottle full of water is great to have. If the smell of vinegar overwhelms your senses, then dilute the vinegar with water and wear a mask.
Vinegar is a great cleaning substance, and paired with the right chemicals, it can clean nearly every surface of your home. It can even remove terrible odors from most fabrics.
The smell of vinegar is strong, so open all the windows in your place of residence and light a few candles to eliminate the smell.
How To Clean Shower Doors With Vinegar
For most of us, cleaning the shower is not a fun task.
Cleaning with vinegar is an old school cleansing method, but it will get the job done. Your grandmother, mother, and all of your aunties have definitely used vinegar cleaning solutions.
If your father or brother likes to work on cars, they probably use vinegar cleaning solution to remove oil buildup. That’s how powerful vinegar can be.
So vinegar can definitely remove any hard water, grime, or soap scum buildup in your shower, sinks, and around your bathroom.
How Does Vinegar Work?
Now that you know that vinegar is a strong clean chemical, it’s important to know why.
Vinegar is a strong natural acid. The main substance in vinegar is acetic acid.
The ph of vinegar is 2.2 to 2.5. The acid base scale or the ph scale ranges from 1 to 14, 1 being extremely acidic and 14 being extremely basic.
If water is added to vinegar, then the ph of the solution will rise to around 5. A water/vinegar solution will not be as effective, but it is still acidic.
For particularly tough stains, pour pure white vinegar directly on the stain. The white vinegar will bubble and fizz when it comes into contact with the spot you’re trying to clean.
Adding baking soda to vinegar is a great cleaning solution. Just be aware that the solution will foam up for a minute or so.
Tips and Tricks to Cleaning Shower Doors with Vinegar
Always rinse off pure unmixed vinegars when you are finished cleaning. Do not allow vinegar to sit on or around the shower overnight.
Vinegar may be a natural cleaner but it is acidic. If you leave the vinegar on a surface overnight, it could fade the coloring on the tiles or make the shower doors cloudy.
Choose a scrubbing tool that will not scratch the surface of the shower door. Some scrubbing tools have bristles that are much too tough for glass or plastic sliding doors.
If you don’t have any soft scrubbing tools, then it would be better to spray unfiltered vinegar on the shower door and let it sit for 20 minutes. Then you can scrub it off with a tough washcloth.
When cleaning your bathroom and shower, use cleaning tools for the bathrooms. Do not use the same cleaning tools to clean your kitchen, living room, and bathroom.
The last thing you want is for someone to clean the toilet with a sponge and then go wash the dishes with that same sponge! Yuck!
No matter how thick the hard water or soap scum stains are on the shower doors, do not use a scraper to scrape it off.
Do not wait a long time to wash the shower doors. Every time you shower, hard water and soap scum build up around the shower.
Have your home inspected for hard water issues. Besides soap and dirt, hard water is one of the main issues that can cause a shower to become dirty.
Hard water is not just an issue for the shower, but for the entire house. If you don’t have your home inspected for hard water issues, you could deal with severe hard water piping issues in a decade.
Certain soaps can cause stains to form in your shower. In bar soaps, there is an ingredient called paraffin wax, and this wax is the residue that builds up in and around your shower.
When you use bar soaps to wash your body, the droplets of soap will splash around the shower and leave the waxy residue wherever it lands.
What Should You Not Use Vinegar On?
Never clean stone tiles with a solution that has vinegar. Marble, limestone and granite are common countertop materials and they cannot come into contact with vinegar.
Do not add vinegar to your dishwasher, as it can damage the rubber inside the machine.
Do not use vinegar to clean hardwood floors either. Hardwood floors have a seal on their surface and vinegar will eat away at that seal.
Also, make sure to never mix hydrogen peroxide and vinegar while cleaning, along with bleach and ammonia.
How to Prevent Grime and Soap Build Up
Make a vinegar spray by combining three parts water and one part vinegar in a spray bottle. On each day that the shower is used, spray the solution around the shower and on the shower doors.
Spray as much as you want around your shower.
You can scrub the shower, but you don’t have to. The vinegar solution will loosen any grime and scum buildup. Then rinse the vinegar after 20 minutes.
Also, you can prevent a lot of soaps from building up by changing the type of soaps, shampoos, and conditioners you use on your body.
Replace your bar soap with a liquid soap that does not have paraffin in it. Check the ingredients in your shampoo and conditioner and see if there is paraffin or any other types of wax on the ingredients list.
Conclusion to Using Vinegar to Clean Your Glass Shower Doors
Vinegar is a great cleaning solution and it can clean the shower and your shower doors. Do not use a scrubbing tool with thick, hard bristles as it could damage the glass or plastic shower doors.
Changing your shampoo and so could prevent a lot of soap scum buildup. If your home has hard water issues, it is best to have it treated and fixed before it Narrows the piping in your sinks, bathrooms, and shower heads.
