The best homemade DIY all natural, non-toxic toilet bowl cleaner ever! This simple ingredient but heavy-duty toilet bowl cleaner gets rid of tough stains and rings!
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission if you make a purchase, but you will not be charged a penny extra! And mama, I never recommend products I don’t love or believe in.
For most of my married, child-rearing life, I’ve only had one toilet. My husband and I have four kids, with our oldest just turning six. Only two months ago we finished installing a second bathroom in our home. We have gone for YEARS with just one toilet. It became imperative that I keep it clean! With two little boys learning how to pee straight and one little girl who also somehow manages to miss, I’ve spent quite a bit of time wiping the John.
Ring around the toilet?
Do you have an irrational fear of something?
I have this inexplicable drive to keep that toilet clean in case we have company and someone needs to throw up and have their face up in there. I don’t know why I fear this, since it’s NEVER happened, but it’s always in the back of my mind.
I’ve had to throw up on some toilets that were in such nasty shape it made me want to throw up again just from looking at it.
Well I guess that’s where that fear comes from.
I don’t want that to happen here.
To keep the toilet clean and in tip-top not-causing-people-to-ralph shape, I used to buy regular toilet bowl cleaner.
You know the kind. It’s blue, comes in a squirt bottle, and promised you wouldn’t have to get any closer than 10 inches from your toilet because it was “no scrub”.
Hallelujah.
Until I realized that that little ol’ bottle is full of toxic chemicals.
(To be clear, just because something has chemicals in it, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s toxic. Water is a chemical. So be careful of people that freak out about “chemicals.” But DO freak out about harmful, synthetic, toxic chemicals).
The lure of “no scrub”
So many products now claim to be “no scrub.” And to be honest, a lot of them live up to that! As much as I would love to magically have things clean without needing to roll up my sleeves, that’s just not really possible. Not without a cost.
Let’s talk about that.
We live in a culture that wants things easy. Right? We want quicker, faster, smaller, bigger, now, yesterday, please and thank you.
We want maximum results with minimal effort.
And we want life to be easier…I want life to be easier!
This blog is geared toward moms. We need some shortcuts to keep our sanity, and I write these posts to help make life easier for you! I’m passionate about it.
But at what cost does this level of “easy” come at?
Products that are usually “no scrub” involve using unnatural and/or highly toxic chemical reactions to eat away at the grime going on. Most of these products have serious warnings that you shouldn’t touch it with your bare hands, and, holy cannoli, don’t let it get in your mouth (which might actually be a thing if you have young kids around)!
The true cost of the majority of “no scrub” products is the health and safety of my family and the health of the people who make these poisonous products in massive factories.
That cost is too high for me.
I will use a little elbow grease to not have part in that.
And because you’re here, willing to even think about taking time to make your own cleaner, I’m guessing you’re willing to do a teeny bit of work, too (don’t worry, I’m not talking about scrubbing for hours! I’m saying, like, a minute, ya’ll).
So today’s cleaner is not a promise of no scrub.
But it is still freakin’ easy.
And you can totally get some in your mouth.
Now, when it comes to DIY toilet bowl cleaner, I’ve tried various homemade recipes. When I first switched to natural cleaners, I really wanted a good, thick, homemade gel toilet bowl cleaner. But why? Apparently years of using that gel stuff drilled in a hard to break habit. I just wanted to squirt gel on the rim and give a quick swish and flush! I can’t explain why I was so committed to making a toilet bowl cleaning gel.
Here’s what I found:
I don’t have time to make a complicated homemade toilet bowl cleaner
Or I don’t want to make time for it (whichever) when this trick works just as well or better!
You ready?
The only thing you need to keep your toilet clean is baking soda.
That’s it.
1 Ingredient.
Essential oils are optional for added disinfecting and freshening purposes.
Ingredients
- Baking soda (enough to fill whatever shaker you want to use. I fill up a reused parmesan container)
- Essential oils with disinfecting super-hero action like tea tree, lavender, peppermint, clove, cinnamon, and rosemary
I’m going to skip the directions on how to put baking soda in a container, because I think better of you than that.
But to add essential oils there are two ways to do it.
First method to use essential oils in your DIY toilet bowl cleaner
You can add essential oils to the baking soda in the container. About 15 drops for every ½ cup of baking soda. Then thoroughly shake it all together with the lid tightly on.
Second method to use essential oils in your toilet bowl cleaner
Add the 3-5 drops of essential oil right into the toilet bowl after sprinkling with baking soda. This is my preferred method.
How to use your easy homemade toilet bowl cleaner
To clean, just sprinkle a layer of baking soda along the rim of the toilet. Use a toilet brush to scrub any stains and spots.
Swish and flush.
For harder stains and a deeper clean, empty the toilet bowl.
Never done it before? Here’s a quick how-to:
Emptying the toilet bowl can usually be done by filling a pitcher or large bowl with water and pouring it quickly into the bowl. Pour it slowly, and you’re in over-flow trouble, girl. Be brave and dump that water in! Aim for the hole.
Now sprinkle the baking soda in a layer all over and add a couple drops of lemon (or other) essential oil. Use the toilet brush to thoroughly scrub the toilet. Flush as normal.
If you have a problem with hard water stains, which is essentially mineral deposits, I’ve heard good things about using this. I’ve never used it personally since the baking soda works well enough for my purposes, but if it doesn’t for yours, that’s a great non-toxic next step!
For regular upkeep
The more often you scrub your toilet, the easier it is to clean. It’s common sense, but until I read it somewhere, I just didn’t do it. I saved toilet cleaning for when company was coming over. Now I at least scrub it every other day with just the toilet brush and nothing else. About 1-2 times a week I’ll use the baking soda and essential oils to give it an extra good clean and a bit of an antibacterial boost.
To deal with the outside of the toilet, I use this, along with a homemade multipurpose cleaner when it needs a good wipe down.
Want more natural cleaning recipes and tips? Check out the rest of this series, Green Spring Cleaning:
Day One: Disinfecting Spray
Day Two: Window Cleaner
Day Three: Fabric Softener
Leave a Reply