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Cars and Coconut Oil to the Rescue?:
How to Remove Hard Water Stains on Shower Doors
My greatest enemy in goal of creating a home that is quick and easy to clean is - hard water.
Hard water stains appear everywhere and take a millions years to remove. Then - it has the audacity to sneak it's way back after all the hard work that went into getting rid of them. Just chilling on glass shower doors, forming questionable rings in toilet bowls and sink. Messing up my kettle.
It's so annoying.
But what I've come to realize is the house cleaning game - is that it turns you into a chemist. Each thing has it's own recipe for how best to clean it. Natural or chemical based - you'll always be brewing up a cleaning remedy.
Anyway, back to the hard water stains.
The most permanent solution to this is to install a water softener system for your entire home or for specific areas like the shower. Since I rent, this solution eludes me. So I'm stuck with elbow grease, homemade remedies, or other products made specifically to solve this problem.
Recently, through a hunt of the internet on the topic, I found some other interesting solutions that others have tried and thought I would share some of them with you. It's surprising how much cars turn out the be the heroes in this saga.
And I learned that there is no wipe and go away - like dusting. No, its all a process and steps to follow - even with secret ingredients.
In this article let's start with how to remove hard water stains from shower doors...
Car maintenance products to the rescue
- Car windshield cleaner...
This tip comes from Melissa at serendipityandspice.com. After a couple months of buildup on her glass shower doors due to pregnancy, she got to work with a Magic Eraser followed up with Rain-X, a car windshield cleaner. According to Melissa, this secret ingredient protected her glass shower doors from hard water stains for more than 4 months. - Waterproof sanding wet/dry paper...
This tip comes from Mary at everydaycheapskate.com. This one has me the most curious to try - mainly because it looks like it can be used on other household items as well not just glass shower doors. According to Mary the waterproof sanding wet/dry paper is used in the automotive industry to polish the surface of a car to a mirror finish. Those are words to my ears, mirror finish. I checked out the product online and according to what I've learned it offers precision polishing for many applications such as, wood, metal, lacquer, plastics, glass, stone and leather.
Homemade Solution
- Coconut oil?...Really?...
This tip comes from ThriftDee at hometalk.com. There is a recipe involving essential oils and the application of said recipe on circular motions on the glass door. This was then followed up with the application of half-and-half warmed up white vinegar and water solution. ThriftDee got some great results from this.
I will admit that I give the coconut oil a try. Now I did not use the exact recipe - but I did apply the coconut oil and cleaned it of with some lemon juice and baking soda.
You can see the outcome below...
So I was - and maybe still am - nervous about using this method in my shower because oil and drains don't mix. However, I did take the precaution of laying down some old towels on the shower floor and poured some baking soda and hot water down the drain when I was done.
I must say - I'm enjoying the result. Water just seems to bounce right off the doors now.
We'll see how long this lasts.
Although everyone has different strategies - until you can fit your home with some sort of water softener system, you should always include and followup on a maintenance plan to keep hard water stains at bay. In terms of the glass shower doors, that could mean drying them after every shower with a squeegee or microfibre cloth.
