Open Concept Organizing: Natural Tub & Shower Cleaner

Scrub-a-dub-dub, I hate cleaning the tub. We have a stand alone shower and a shower-tub combo that are used regularly, and I always dread the day to clean them. Somehow I end up more wet than the shower, my back aches, and I have an instant headache from the chemicals in that small space. In this post, I shared a cleaning tip to reduce the frequency of a full shower cleaning. But about once a month, I get in there and scrub both of them down really well. We have really hard water, and even with a water softener, there are always spots on our showers, especially the tiled one. When I came across this natural tub and tile cleaner at the Money Saving Mom blog, I was super excited to try it out!

To mix up this recipe, you'll need the following:

3/4 cup baking soda
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 tablespoons salt
3 tablespoons dishwashing liquid
1/2 cup vinegar
10 drops of essential oil (optional)

After reading the original post, I decided not to make a whole batch of this cleaner because it doesn't work especially well in a spray bottle. So I split the above recipe in half and ended up with the perfect amount to scrub both of my showers. I mixed all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl because both the lemon juice and the vinegar react with the baking soda. This bowl was a bit too big, but it worked fine.

With my amateur photography skills and the lack of natural light in our bathrooms, it was difficult to take before and after pictures for this cleaner but here is what I got.

The before:

You can see the excessive amounts of water spots on the faucet. The tiles look the same; it's just impossible to see that on the white tile in the above photo. I wet down the walls of the shower and then used a sponge to scrub the mixture onto the walls. Nothing like a good arm workout to get ready for summer!

This cleaner smells great. I chose not to use the essential oils because the orange scent from my dishwash soap was good enough. I scrubbed my way all around the shower and then hit the tub the same way. I finished by rinsing everything down really well. While there are still some spots on the faucet, this cleaner easily wiped away all the grime from the shower and reduced the spots considerably. It left both of the showers sparkling and smelling great. Here is an after shot: