Toilet Bowl Cleaning Tips & Hacks | Best Techniques & Mistakes to Avoid

We use them every day when we need to relieve ourselves: toilets Hence, a regularly used unit should be properly cleaned, sanitized, and disinfected.

Here 6 tips to get your unit cleaned as well as best techniques and mistakes to avoid to motivate you while sprucing up your bathroom.

1. Toilet Bowl Cleaner

Toilet bowl cleaners are usually best as go-to products to satisfy this household task. Just follow these steps to sanitize as well as disinfect.

• Flush your toilet.
• While it’s refilling, lift your seat. Squeeze formula around its bowl’s rim.
• Scrub it clean using a reusable brush.
• Let sit during a time period shown on your product to properly sanitize and/or disinfect. Lysol brand says 5 minutes to sanitize and 10 minutes to disinfect.

Popular Ingredients

Ingredients in bowl cleaners help to sanitize, disinfect, remove stains, as well as whiten your toilet. A few popular ingredients include hydrochloric acid, sodium hypochlorite, as well as bleach.

Most name brand bowl cleaners are able to kill 99.9% of germs.

Hydrochloric Acid

Hydrochloric acid is especially effective to remove built up grime. From urine salts to hard water mineral deposits as well as rust and scale, this acid compound cleans it all away for a fresh, clean unit.
Sodium Hypochlorite

This ingredient helps to purify water to make it healthfully safe. It’s used as a bleaching agent to whiten surfaces, it helps to reduce stenches. It disinfects the water from possible disease.

Bleach

It whitens surfaces much like sodium hypochlorite. While it is not a cleaning agent, it is a disinfectant to help rid of germs.

Not every product contains this ingredient. Check product packaging where it will state “bleach” in bold lettering.

Clorox

Clorox bowl cleaning agent is made up of 2.4% of sodium hypochlorite. There is a 97.6% mix of other ingredients.

A value pack of two 24 ounce Clorox bowl cleaners is $3.23 at Walmart. If you need only one bottle, it is $1.86.

Lysol

Hydrochloric acid makes up 9.5% of Lysol brand products. Other ingredients such as water, other cleaning acids, and maybe bleach (if on product label) could be included.

Find a two-pack of Lysol bowl cleaning agent here. It’s $3.47 to purchase this twin pack of containers of 24 ounces each. If you need just one bottle, it’s only $1.97.

Try Lysol Advanced Deep Cleaning option, you can get a 4-pack from Walmart online priced at $21.99. It’s a heightened disinfecting formula that leaves your toilet bowl even whiter. This washer permeates deeper built up stains.

Works

Works bowl cleaner is a disinfectant that is able to remove grime such as hard-water buildup as well as lime.

Zep

Zep acidic bowl cleaner has a 10% acid formula to remove accumulated stains without that much scrubbing while cleaning. It will not harm septic tanks.

2. Go Automatic

Why not go automatic in between regular cleans?

Whether it’s tablets or click gels, find your favorite way to automatically clean your unit in between regular manual cleans. Automatic solutions do not substitute manual cleaning. It’s great for lessening odors. It also starts stain removal before it’s time for a weekly manual clean.

When flushing, solution from a tablet or gel will release to automatically cleanse your unit.

Tablets hang inside your unit. It will dissolve during a flush. Try the Lysol 2-pack automatic bowl cleaner tablets.

Click gels are placed underneath a rim. They automatically dissolve after so many flushes as described on the product’s packaging. The Lysol click gels come in a 6 pack of disposable applicator. The entire package lasts an average of 3 months.

Reviews show that customers love automatic solutions!

3. Foaming Bathroom Cleaners

A foaming agent simplifies your bathroom cleaning routine. Rather than squeezing out formula around its rim, just spray inside then clean as normal.

Kaboom Foam-tastic is formulated to clean more than just your bathroom surfaces. It works in the toilet, too!

When spraying Kaboom Foam-tastic, it goes from blue to white. Use your cleaning wand to scrub away stains to get a clean unit! It leaves behind a pleasant scent after your bathroom cleaning routine.

4. Toilet Wand Flushable Pads

Flushable pads are a great substitute versus a reusable wand. Attach a pad to a plastic wand provided in a starter kit. One pad equals a one-time cleaning use. After use, flush it down the drain.

Using flushable pads instead of keeping a reusable brush around will:

• Reduce odors in your bathroom usually left behind by a reusable wand.
• Simplify your bathroom sprucing experience by discarding the pad right after use.
• Keep your bathroom more organized having less supplies.

Check out Scrubbing Bubbles flushable pads toilet wand starter kit at Target.

Scrubbing Bubbles flushable pad refills at Walmart.

5. Check Your Cleaning Cabinet.

If there’s no other solutions in the cabinet, use all purpose cleaner, wait some time, then use bleach to disinfect.

• First, clean with your favorite all purpose formula.
• Let it sit a few hours after some flushes. DO NOT mix ammonia with bleach or it will cause a toxic gas. This is we recommend to wait a while. Use your bathroom as normal before treating it with bleach.
• Finally, flush your unit. Add bleach. Scrub with a wand to disinfect.

6. Homemade Cleaners

Make your own DIY cleaner with a variety of ingredients that’s already inside your home.

Here are some ideas to create your own DIY cleaner.

• Mix Baking Soda and Vinegar

Pour in a quarter cup of baking soda then a half cup of vinegar. Let it fizz. Begin scrubbing once the fizzing stops. You will be left with a whiter unit sure to sparkle when sitting your butt down to go.

• Make Your Own Tablets

There’s many recipes on blogs to make your own tablets. Main ingredients to create homemade tablets are baking soda, citric acid, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, and essential oils such as pine, lavender, or lemon. It’s a natural way to clean your toilet that also leaves a satisfying scent behind.

• DIY Gel

There are many recipes to make DIY gel. Usual ingredients include distilled water, castile soap, essential oils, borax, and baking soda. It’s a quick solution for creating an effective gel that cleans your bathroom unit.

Best Tips

Best tricks for bowl cleaning include:

• Scrub lightly when cleaning with a reusable brush.
• Get products or make homemade solutions with most natural ingredients, so it’s safe for your family.
• Replace automatic solutions a little before they dissolve as they become less effective when smaller in size.
• Clean your unit at least on a weekly basis to lessen stains building up.

Mistakes to Avoid

Mistakes to avoid during toilet bowl cleaning include:

• Do not use too much formula when using a gel. Conserve money by using a light amount of formula.
• Do not scrub too hard or you will damage your unit over time.
• Make sure to get a formula that is safe to use in septic tanks if you have one. If it is not septic safe, it will be a costly replacement.

Find Motivation

We get it that cleaning your toilet can be annoying, but find self motivation you need to keep up on it regularly. Do your best to follow a routine for more satisfaction in your environment.

• Develop a set routine by picking a day per week that you focus on bathroom cleaning.
• Get your favorite solution whether store bought or homemade with a nice scent.
• Set an alarm on your smartphone as reminder to get done your set routine.