OK, I've got soap scum built up on my bathroom shower door and in the future will:
1) Squeegee
2) Try Rain-X for prevention
3) Try gel instead of bar soap
However, the question NOW remains: How do I clean the glass? Ugh!
I've tried a vinegar and water solution, and Bon Ami cleanser. It's better, but still not clear. I've read that an ammonia solution would work, but I'm pretty chemically sensitive and hate to use something so strong and toxic. However, if it's the only way, I'll ventilate and wear a mask.
Any helpful insight would be greatly appreciated. I'd love to tackle the job this weekend!
Try this...get a towel that you don't care about. Secure it over the door, so that most of it is hanging on the part you want cleaned. Soak it with vinegar and water solution (straight vin would be better, if you can handle that) overnight. Then rinse and squeegee. Then replace doors with curtain that can be thrown in the wash :-).
Just an idea, I've no clue if it will work. But it makes sense since it would be how I get lime off the showerhead.
Tackle yourself a bottle of the original (NOT the imitators!) of Clean Shower. Use it after every shower* for a week or two. Eventually it will soften the built-up scum so that it can be easily removed with X-14.
When I first discovered Clean Shower, which I now use religiously, the scum build-up in my shower was.... embarassing. I couldn't get the damn stuff out, even with Comet. (I wonder if there's a use for my soap scum in the space program. Anything that tough ought to be good for something.) Anyhow, I started with the Clean Shower thinking that the gunk might come out by itself. It didn't, but when attacked with the X-14, it practically ran off the surface and down the drain.
If you take only one shower a week, you might have to wait a few weeks for the benefits to kick in.
Try the heavy-duty Comet bathroom cleaner -- the squirt stuff in the plastic bottle. It'll knock you out if you get a good whiff of it, though, so open the window and try to avoid breathing the spray.
On fiberglass, I had little luck with Tilex and no luck with vinegar. I tried several other substances. I didn't dare try scouring powder.
Scrubbing with a paste of baking soda was quick and effective. I've also tried a paste of baking soda and salt on a cloth. I think it's a little faster for big surfaces.
Use paper towels and straight vinegar. Wet the towels in vinegar and lay them against the door - the easiest way to do this seems to be to tear off a strip of toweling, lay it up against the door and spray thoroughly with the vinegar until the towel is saturated and clings to the door. Repeat til the door is covered. Spray more vinegar every hour or so not allowing the towels to dry out. After a day of this, the scum should be gone. Worked for me and the shower door was caked with lime.
An alternative is to use aluminum jelly - like naval jelly but not as harsh.
Dude! It wasn't me! It was M who wrote: : OK, I've got soap scum built up on my bathroom shower door and in the : future will: : 1) Squeegee : 2) Try Rain-X for prevention : 3) Try gel instead of bar soap : However, the question NOW remains: How do I clean the glass? Ugh!
In my experience, the Tilex Soap Scum stuff actually works. Spray it on, leave it a little while, then wipe it off.
There's a little known bathroom cleaner called The Works that is usually found in Dollar Stores and Wal-Mart here where I live. The cool part is that it works both on soap scum and hard water stains. I had both in my shower and I used The Works to effectively eliminate all of it and have that shiny new shower feeling (at least until the first shower). Before I found this, I had to use a bathroom cleaner (Lysol in my case, but others worked too) and a lime remover (Lime-a-Way or CLR). This way I could only use one cleaning solution and cut my cleaning time (and my exposure to that cleaners - I always sneeze and itch after cleaning my bathroom). Now, I think I'm going to use Clean Shower, hopefully put off the shower cleaning even longer.
Go to a hardware or auto store and get an alkaline degreaser. You can find it in a spray bottle in the cleaners area. Spray it on heavily and wait 15 minutes. Wash off with a sponge and water and gape in amazement. After years of get-naked-scrub-like-a-manic-with-bon-ami-for-30-minutes, this works brilliantly. It will cut through soap films so thick they're 3-D (or really, 3-K, i.e. 3 kids, one bathroom, 6 months in a "temporary" apartment.)
For a tough job, I've had the most success with Tilex. Spray then leave the room. Come back in a few hours or end of the day and rinse.
But if you're looking for something less harsh, I suggest just using a little bit of shampoo on one of those plastic scrunchie things they sell for less than a dollar (you're supposed to use them on your skin). Try a clarifying shampoo, as they are specially formulated to rid your hair of all kinds of build-up. I have highlighted blonde hair that tends to turn greenish if it gets too much chlorine or lime from the water. Clarifying shampoo or shampoo designed specifically for blonde, highlighted hair works miracles on hair *and* shower walls. Also works great for scrubbing down the bathroom walls that tend to get splattered with hairspray.
I had the worse time trying to get the hairspray off until I put some logic to it and thought to try a little shampoo! My thought is that soap scum is not just soap; it's a mixture of soap plus hard-water deposits, lime, hair gel, mousse, hair spray, dirt, and dead skin cells. Shampoo gets this stuff out of your hair; logically, it should also work on your shower stall.
I've found the scrunchie works great because it scours yet doesn't scratch the finish. I don't have a glass shower door anymore, but this is what I use weekly to scour out the fiberglass tub, wipe down the marble walls, and scrub the plastic shower curtain.
Also, if you really don't want to use harsh chemicals, just try being persistent. Continue to scrub the shower with the shampoo and scrunchy every day for a couple of weeks, rinse thoroughly, then follow with the squeegee after you stop the shower. Over time, the soap scum should eventually disappear, a little each day, just as it slowly appeared. Then you can switch to daily squeegeeing and weekly scouring for maintenance.
For years, that was the best I could do. It was slow, difficult, hard on my hands, and unpleasant to breathe
Soft soap is potassium with a fatty acid. Hard soap is sodium with a fatty acid. Soap scum is *supposed* to be calcium and/or magnesium with a fatty acid. Calcium and magnesium are in hard water. They can replace the sodium and potassium in soap, resulting in deposits that aren't water soluble. (Soap scum is an excellent lubricant for some applications.)
However, it seems that the same remedy doesn't work for everyone. Like you, I think not all soap scum is the same. It may be due to differences among the fatty acids in different soaps and the differences between calcium and magnesium.
Baking soda on a handiwipe is so quick and effective for me that I don't bother with the job until the walls become discolored. I think maybe it turns the soap scum back into soap, while the bicarbonate becomes magnesium bicarbonate and calcium bicarbonate. These substances are water soluble.
I have the best luck with that new Kaboom cleaner in the purple bottle. You can buy it at Wal-Mart. Take the doors off their hinge and lay them down in the tub or outside. Spray heavily and leave for a few minutes. Scrub with a nylon covered sponge. Rinse well.
I have really good luck w/ a dryer softening sheet and some elbow grease. I think it was a hint from heloise...or something on those lines, and let me tell you, it really works!
I have had good luck using Citra-Solv on soap scum that seems resistant to other remedies. I just spray it on, let it set, and wipe it off with a sponge with the white 3M scrubber on one side.
use "Bar Keepers Friend" it's in a container like comet. usually found on the top shelf at the store . works awsome it has muratic acid in it so be careful not to leave it on too long or it will etch the surface.
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