Can you believe this is my fourth attempt at doing a post about how to remove soap scum? I kept trying different tricks, and nothing worked. Today, I’m sharing all my soap scum failures, and letting you know what worked best.
What I’ve Tried to Remove Soap Scum
Dryer Sheets
Have you seen this trick? You are supposed to wet down a dryer sheet and rub it on the soap scum, making it magically disappear. I tried this trick long before I started this blog, and trust me, it was a fail.
Lemon
Have you seen a similar image on Pinterest? If you know me, then you know I love a good cleaning tip, preferably using all-natural ingredients. I was so excited to try out this lemon trick: cut a lemon in half and rub it on the soap scum. The acid in the lemon is supposed to break down the soap scum and reveal a shiny faucet. When I started rubbing the lemon on the shower handle, I was excited; it immediately looked shiny and scum-free, but after I rinsed it and let it dry, it looked no different… fail.
Lemon Essential Oil
I realized the idea behind the use of a lemon was correct, in theory. The acid from the lemon should help with the soap scum, so I decided to try lemon essential oil, which would be like putting concentrated lemon on the soap scum. This trick actually did okay, but seriously, you’d need about 20 bottles of essential oil to get your shower doors clean, and I don’t think anyone is ready to spend $100+ for a clean shower… I know I’m not.
Vinegar
I love vinegar. It did wonders at removing hard water/mineral deposits on my faucet, so I thought it might do well on the soap scum too. Wrong. I sprayed it all over the shower doors and faucet, and allowed it to sit for an hour. I rinsed. I scrubbed. Nothing. Total fail.
Magic Eraser
I finally went out and bought a Magic Eraser that was specifically designed to work on soap scum. Like the lemon, everything looked amazing while I was scrubbing. Unlike the lemon, once I rinsed things off and let it dry, the soap scum was minimized. I cannot say it was completely gone, but it was much better than when I started. (… and no. Mr. Clean® is not paying me a cent for this post.)
Taking pictures in your shower is a tough. I have that textured type door, but you can see in the image above how much scum had built up on it. While you can still see a bit in the after, it is a major improvement. And outside of adding the text overlay, neither image was edited in any way so you could see the true effect.
What have you tried to remove soap scum, and what were your results?
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Blue Dawn dish soap and ammonia in hot water!!
I also use a yellow sponge with the green scrubby on the other side.
Stainless Steel Cleaner!!!
I have literally tried eeeeeverythig. I started cleaning houses professionally and have not been able to find a great product. The Mr Clean Soap Scum Magic Eraser worked best…after trying tons of products and cleaning hacks/tricks. But when I was much younger I worked for a professional cleaning company and we used some lemon oil stuff the company provided. It was awesome! But now I needed to figure this out on my own. I was cleaning a clients home and they had built up soap scum that wasn’t budging…so with the lemon oil in mind I tried my aerosol spray can of stainless steel cleaner that I had purchased at Smart & Final (their brand) It came off immediately. NO SCRUBBING!! I told my client what I did…just incase it was actually a fail after they used the shower. But much to my delight, he reported it was awesome as well!! Yay!! And because of the oil…it created a shield of sorts that made the water bead off and actually hindering the soap scum from easily binding to the glass. This saves SO much time and energy allowing me to continue on without burning out so quickly. I haven’t tried any other brands just the First Street. Hope it helps!
I too go for the home made cleaners however if you need to get the soap scum off plastic or glass shower doors use liquid gold furniture polish!! I’ve done house cleaning for people for many years and learned few things along the way! It comes in arosol can with red cap. Just spray on wipe off you’ll have clear doors takes all scum and cloudy off doors
What I use to clean soap scum in my shower is to take a dish cloth that has a scrubby side, pour any cheap hair shampoo on the cloth and start scrubbing. The cheap hair shampoo dissolves the old soap scum. Rinse and done!
I have never heard of this trick before. I will absolutely try it out. Thanks for sharing.
Baking soda-water paste, damp sponge, elbow grease. Rinse well, baking soda does film. Probably why older toothpastes are said to work.
My favorite is Norwex’s descaler!! Spray it on, leave for 10 minutes, wipe down with the bathroom scrub mitt and clean!!!
I LOVE my Norwex cleaning rags. I didn’t realize they had anything for soap scum. I’ll have to check it out. Thank you!
I don’t know about soap scum on shower doors……. don’t have a shower therefore no shower door, lol! But I’ve found that magic erasers really are magic and have used them on all kinds of things when my “green” methods failed. Magic erasers and SOS pads, Dawn and the small bottle of emergency bleach are the only non “green” cleaners I have in the house any more.
Tub, toilet and sink get spayed down with 6 to 1 mix of white vinegar and Dawn every night after the last bath is taken and wiped down with a rag and the toilet bowl (which also got sprayed) swished with the toilet brush. Takes 3 or 4 minutes, tops. I never have to scrub or do a deep clean because nothing has a chance to build up. I think that once you can get rid of the scum, this might help to keep it from building up again? Again, I don’t have a shower door so this is just conjecture on my part!
I use almost exclusively homemade cleaners, so this was a rare exception. I think you are correct, however: Maintaining the cleaning in key in not allowing it to get out of hand.
Aw, sheesh! I didn’t mean to sound like I thought you were going nuts with heavy duty commercial chemical artillery, lol! I know you’re pretty green! Nor did I mean to imply that you don’t do maintenance cleaning!
My daughter and I were talking about shower doors (hers) today. I remember reading, a long time ago, that toothpaste would clean soap scum off shower doors. But I think it had to be an old school toothpaste like Pepsodent and not a gel paste. Perhaps that’s worth a try? A tube of Pepsodent is under a dollar. Some people swear by using Turtle car wax on the inside of the door once it’s good and clean to help keep the soap residue from building up again. I have a couple of people that I know who swear by Rain X ( the stuff for car windshields that repels water). Daughter’s shower doors are new so we had nothing to test the Pepsodent on. But she’s going to try the Rain X to see if it works as a preventative.
Interesting. I’ll have to try some of your ideas 🙂
We successfully used traditional paste toothpaste and a buffing pad attached to my husbands drill. Be CAREFUL with the tooth paste and how much you use or it will be slung all over the bathroom!!! But it works. It still takes elbow grease to hold the drill in place while it does the hard work.