You probably wipe down your glass shower door pretty regularly but once in a while, you just have to commit to a deep clean. If you aren’t a fan of vinegar, though, that doesn’t mean you have to grin and bear it. Here, we’re going to take a look at how to clean glass shower doors, shower enclosures, and bathroom windows without vinegar or toxic chemicals.
Unless you are dedicated to squeegeeing your glass shower doors every time you shower, it won’t take long for them to start looking like this:
What are Hard Water Stains?
You might hear hard water stains referred to by a few other names, commonly including simply calling the deposits mineral buildup. These are the white spots you might see in your shower. Don’t worry – these are only calcium deposits, nothing dangerous.
Cloudy and dirty. You can almost see through them. And maybe you’re okay with that?! I actually kind of prefer not being able to see myself naked in the mirror opposite my glass shower doors! Here’s a closer look at the filth.
What You’ll Need to Wipe Your Shower Doors Without Vinegar:
- Lemons
- To make a lemon and water spray, you’ll need three lemons but you’ll only need one to use the lemon with baking soda.
- In addition, if you’re juicing the lemons yourself, make sure not to throw the lemons away right after you juice them either as you’ll need them later
- Distilled water
- Microfiber cloth
- Second microfiber cloth for drying your glass shower doors
- Baking soda
- This is only necessary for the method including a sliced lemon rather than three juiced ones
- Lemon oil (optional)
How to Clean Glass Shower Doors Without Vinegar (Steps by Steps)
Step 1: Preparing Your Cleaning Solution
When you’re getting ready to clean your glass shower doors, you’ll want to make sure you have your cleaning solution ready. This is the biggest part of this tutorial that vastly differs from cleaning your shower doors with vinegar. After all, this is the main change in procedure.
A great alternative to vinegar is actually lemon juice. Not only does it clean well, though, but it comes with the added benefit of pleasant citrus scent which vinegar decidedly lacks.
For this, you’ll need to juice three lemons. Then, take the juice you got from this step and mix it with a cup of water – distilled is best. Once your done, you can put the mixture into a clean spray bottle for easier application.
Step 2: Spray Your Shower
Now that you have your cleaning solution, you can get started with the actual cleaning! You can keep your shower doors in the shower door tracks for this one.
All you need to do for this step is to spray your shower door (and your shower if you want) with the lemon water. Make sure to spray the door evenly with the mixture to ensure that you get the best coverage possible. Once you’ve done this, leave the soray on the shower door for five minutes. After that, you can wipe it off with a dry microfiber cloth. Be careful to dry it completely again with another clean cloth.
Step 3: An Alternate Option
This isn’t really a third step as much as it is an alternate first step to try. If you don’t want to go through the trouble of juicing a few lemons and it’s a great choice if you want something in leiu of a traditional baking soda paste.
For this method, you’ll just need to cut a lemon in half. Dip this half of a lemon, open side down, into your baking soda. Then, you can directly rub the lemon on the glass to scrub it clean. Instead of letting it sit this time, immediately rinse the surface fo the glass with distilled water and dry it.
Pro Tip: If you want to make the most of your lemons while your cleaning the shower, you should make sure to leave a layer of lemon oil on the interior side of your glass shower doors. In doing this, you’ll help to reduce the soap scum that builds up on your shower walls because the lemon oil makes the environment of the door less suitable for this type of collection.
Learn how to organize plastic wrap here.
Cleaning Glass Shower-Doors with Magic Eraser (Our Magic Trick)
Lots of water spots and although you can’t see it, there’s also built up soap scum. So, the secret to restoring transparency to your shower doors?
Behold, the Magic Eraser. Simply get it wet, start scrubbing, and let it do it’s magic! While this is a normal Magic Eraser, there are specialized Magic Erasers that are textured which I can only assume make it even easier on you.
Can anyone confirm this? With the regular Magic Eraser, the soap scum and water spots lifted off with moderate scrubbing action and my shower doors were see through in no time.
After scrubbing, I ran a wet washcloth over the doors and squeegeed them.
How to Clean Glass Shower Doors with Dryer Sheets
When it comes to alternatives to vinegar in cleaning your glass shower doors, another option might already be in your laundry room. With just a dryer sheet and some warm water, you can scrub off mineral deposits and soap scum by following these steps;
- Wet the dryer sheet with warm water until moist
- Start scrubbing the glass shower door with the damp dryer sheet
- Continue to scrub as you see soap scum start to peel off the glass doors. You should be able to scrub all the soap scum away rather easily
Cleaning Shower Glass Doors with WD-40
You actually can use WD-40 to clean your shower doors, believe it or not! It’s mainly helpful because it can displace water, helping to break down hard water stains.
To start, spray the WD-40 on your shower door and leave it to sit for 15 minutes. Then, use a dry microfiber cloth to wipe the door off. Visit this website to learn the differences between caulking and sealant.
How Do You Get Hard Water Stains Off Glass Without Vinegar?
There are plenty of different ways that you can remove hard water stains without the use of vinegar. We’ve already looked at a few useful tools in this including lemons, baking soda, magic eraser and even dryer sheets.
There are also specific cleaning products made for the purpose and other household supplies such as borax, a traditional baking soda paste, or even ammonia, although the latter does require a few more safety precautions.
Does Bar Keepers Friend Remove Hard Water Stains?
If you like to use Bar Keepers Friend when you’re cleaning your bathroom, you already have a solution for dealing with hard water stains.
You can rely on it to tackle anything from soap scum, rust, hard water stains, and other messes that build up over time.
Conclusion
If you want to avoid vinegar the next time you clean your glass shower door, you can turn to a variety of alternatives, including juicing a few lemons to scrub away those hard water stains!
See other Cleaning Pro Tips Like how to clean a burnt food convection oven, and shower head.
Ah, so refreshing to have clean glass shower doors! If you like my glass shower door, I purchased it from Glass Shower Direct.
Did you enjoy our tutorial? Let us know what you thought in the comments and share the article if you liked it!