It’s not fun to enter a public restroom. The floor is hardly tolerable and the toilet is not always clean. What is almost unacceptable is the fact the you have to use the restroom and try your best to forget about the unsightly ring and stains. What if you have the same problem at home? Will you allow your friends to come over and have them use your unhygienic and stinky restroom? It is then imperative that you clean your restroom, especially the stains all over your toilet bowl. Below are some tips to help you get rid of toilet stains.

Safe Toilet Stain Removal

If you want to preserve the beauty of your toilet, there are methods that make use of chemicals, but do not ruin the quality of the porcelain. Vinegar, bleach and borax powder are some examples.

Bleach – If you want to use something stronger than vinegar, then use bleach. Bleach is best used when the rings and stains are already too tough. Pour half a cup of powder into the toilet bowl. Leave it that way for a few hours before you flush the bleach away. Don’t forget to clean the toilet thoroughly.

Vinegar -- Vinegar is always used to remove almost all types of stains, and cleaning your toilet with it is very effective because it can deal with lime scale and hard water deposits. To use vinegar, just pour a huge amount of it into the bowl. Leave it that way for one night, and then do the cleaning in the morning. Keep flushing thoroughly to make sure that your toilet bowl is clean.

Borax Powder — Borax powder is your friend when dealing with toilet stains. It can be easily found in hardware stores. To use this, sprinkle some powder directly onto the affected area. You will need a plastic brush for brushing off the stains. Leave it that way for at least 30 minutes, and then flush. Toilet bowls treated with borax powder turn out gleaming white.

Oxalic Acid — A product like Bar Keepers Friend cleans heavy appliances like cars and decks. The acid in it is too strong that you should be careful when you use it on your toilets. Any product with oxalic acid is a strong product.

More Challenging Stains

When having hard water stain problems, you can use lime scale removers that are available commercially. Scrub the stain with the lime scale remover and leave it. Don’t rinse immediately. Usually, the stain won’t be totally removed, but stain reduction can be already noticed. Repeat the process until the stain is considerably removed. You can also use acidic solutions or products.

If you think the stain is tolerable, you can try to use vinegar while brushing the stain. Acidic solutions are known to penetrate and bring the stain off the surface. Remove stains regularly because they get harder to remove the longer you let them stay on the stained surface.

Ferric Oxide or rust looks like hard red-orange-brown colored peelings on a surface. Rust is chemically made of oxygen and iron. Since oxygen is very abundant in air and water, you just have to deal with where the iron can come from. It’s possible that the water running through your area has a high amount of iron. Another possibility is that your pipes are already rusting, especially if they’re made of metal that has a percentage of iron in the composition.

You can use products that are designed to remove rust stains. Just like a lime scale remover, you will have to do the scrubbing as much as possible. Read and follow the instructions written on the product label to ensure the efficiency of the product. Also, don’t forget to replace your rusting pipes with new, non-rusting ones.

Preventing Toilet Stains

Prevention is always the best move. You can easily get rid of bathroom stains by just cleaning your bathroom regularly. As much as possible, do it on a weekly basis. The longer the stains stay, the harder they are to remove. Keep your bathroom clean so that you can remove the stains by rinsing it with water alone.

Make sure to know what kind of materials the parts of your bathroom are made of in order for you to know what kind of cleaning agent to use. This way, you will also know the proper ways of treating your toilet.

You don’t need to tolerate the unsightly toilet bowl stains and rings. Your restroom is called a “rest” room because it is made to make you feel at home and comfortable.

Cleaning Sinks and Other Parts of the Bathroom

Cleaning sinks is almost the same as cleaning the toilet, as well as the other parts of the bathroom. Stains can also be of rust or lime scale. You can use lime-scale and rust removers as remedy. You can also use borax powder and rub it on the stain, leave it for some minutes before rinsing it thoroughly. Again, you can repeat the process as much as you need to. You can also use cream of tartar with water or peroxide, except when your bath tub is made of fiber glass.

For deposits of hard water, use acidic solutions, like vinegar. Soak a damp of cloth in the solution but make sure the solution is not too acidic. If the solution is acidic, it would consume the cloth and even harm your hand. Lay it over the stained area for a long time. Scrub that area and rinse afterwards.

For old and persistent stains, you can use a solution of trisodium phosphate or TSP. Put one table spoon of TSP in one gallon of warm water. Wet a cloth with the solution and use it to scrub the stain.

Try the acidic solutions that you can find in your kitchen first before using the more acidic ones. Do not forget to use gloves, boots or even goggles to protect yourself from these cleaning agents.