A porcelain tub is often the classiest portion of the bathroom, but this fixture tends to accumulate dirt and germs on a regular basis. You don’t want to be stepping into a luxurious bath in your tub and come out with more germs on you than before!
In order to help you keep your tub clean, we have a detailed breakdown of all the steps you need to follow to clean your porcelain tub and remove all stains.
What You’ll Need
- A strong liquid dishwashing soap
- Baking soda
- Ammonia
- Table salt
- Lemon oil
- A bucket
- A soft cloth or sponge
- A cleaning rag
- A lemon
- Hydrogen peroxide
- Gallon of hot water
Most of these items are already available in the common household, so it's fairly easy to get to cleaning porcelain tubs immediately.
Cleaning Porcelain Tub: A Step-by-Step Guide
- First, you begin by creating a mixture to help you clean your porcelain tub. To create this mixture, first fill a bucket with warm water. Now you can add a quarter cup of baking soda and a quarter cup of ammonia to the water. Your potent porcelain cleaner is ready for action.
- You can use a soft, non-abrasive sponge to clean the porcelain tub. Soak the sponge in the special mix sitting in the bucket and begin to scrub the surface of your bathtub.
- Make sure to focus closely on the tough stains on the tub such as soap scum as the liquid is known to be especially effective in removing stains.
- Keep dipping the sponge in the bucket to absorb the baking soda/ammonia mix as you clean the tub.
- Once you’ve finished cleaning the entire tub, you can begin to rinse the external layer of the tub with water.
- Make sure to wipe the entire surface with a clean, soft cloth once you’re done rinsing. This is because the baking soda will leave a thin white film on the surface if it isn’t removed entirely.
How to Remove Rust Stains from a Porcelain Tub
- Use the table salt from your list of cleaning supplies and cover the sections of the tub that have stains with the salt.
- Cut the lemon you have waiting in the wings in half, and begin to squeeze the juice on the stained sections.
- The salt and lemon will make a potent mix in order to help you remove the stains. You can use a nylon sponge or a clean cloth to scrub the stains thoroughly.
- If the stains have not been entirely eliminated at this point, you can apply the mix on the remainder of the stains again and allow it to sit for an hour this time.
- After an hour, squeeze some more lemon juice on the stained sections and begin to scrub it out with a nylon sponge or soft cloth.
- At this point all the stains must be entirely removed.
- You can rinse the tub out now and wipe it clean with a dry cloth.
Adding a Protective Coating
Once you’re done cleaning your porcelain tub and have removed all the rust stains entirely, there is one last cleaning measure you can use to help your tub get that lasting shine.
This involves providing a simple protective coating to help minimize the chances of stains developing on the external surface in the future.
In order to create this protective coating, first squeeze a small volume of lemon oil onto a clean and dry cloth.
Now you can rub the lemon oil onto the surface of the porcelain tub or any other porcelain fixture in your bathroom. Make sure to avoid the bottom layer of the tub as it can cause it to become quite slippery.
The lemon oil will work wonders on your porcelain surface by repelling any soap scum and other types of dirt. It also helps to keep your tub clean longer and retain a great smell in the process as well.
Final Tips
Here are a handful of additional tips to help you tackle the process of cleaning your porcelain tub:
- Keep your drain in the bathtub free of any clogs or blockages in order to avoid bathtub rings.
- If you’re using a store-bought cleaning agent, make sure to test the product out on a small section of the bathtub before applying it onto the rest of the body. This is because some cleaners tend to have a negative effect on porcelain products, and you don’t want to find this out after using it on the entire tub.
- If the tips and cleaning tricks provided above do not work as well as you'd like, you can always opt to have your tub reglazed by a professional. There are also plenty of reglazing kits available in the market that allow you to execute this process on your own.
Soak It In
There’s nothing quite like soaking in a long day while relaxing in the comfort of one’s porcelain tub. If the tub is dirty, however, your bath is bound to be less than relaxing to say the least.
The instructions provided in the article above should help you keep your tub clean and also remove any rust stains that have developed on the surface by this point.
If you follow these cleaning rituals once every week, your tub is sure to transform into the therapeutic and relaxing destination it was always meant to be.
For more home and bathroom cleaning tips, make sure to visit our blog today!
