What should I use to clean limescale off the shower?

A daily morning and evening shower isn’t just a hygiene routine; it’s often a pleasant bit of relaxation under a stream of hot water. Unfortunately, water hardness is often quite high, which leads to limescale building up on various parts of the shower. Unsightly streaks appear and layer up, making them hard to remove. How do you get limescale off the shower so you can enjoy using it again? What products should you use to make the clean-up quick and easy? Below, we walk you through how to clean a shower step by step – check it out!

How to remove limescale from the shower screen?

The shower enclosure protects the rest of the bathroom from getting soaked while you’re showering. It’s a barrier, and at the same time the element most exposed to limescale deposits. Water droplets often dry on it, creating unsightly streaks that are hard to get rid of. What will remove limescale from a shower enclosure? There are a few options.

First up is getting the right cloth. When cleaning the shower screen, avoid sponges with abrasive layers, as they can scratch the enclosure. A soft microfibre cloth or a rubber squeegee will be a better choice.

Of course, you’ll also need suitable cleaning agents. A handy method is to use products you’ll find in any kitchen: vinegar, bicarbonate of soda and lemon. A 1:1 mix of vinegar and water works brilliantly for removing limescale from the shower screen—just spray it on, wait 10 minutes, then rinse everything off and dry it thoroughly. And if the smell of vinegar bothers you, you can use a mixture of water and citric acid or lemon juice in exactly the same way. This solution will deliver a similar effect while leaving a pleasant scent behind.

Unfortunately, it happens that some dirt won’t shift with home remedies. In such cases, specialist chemical cleaners are the more sensible solution. You just need to remember to choose ones without granules that could scratch the enclosure. Cleaners with a protective sealant are a good choice—they’ll not only clean the glass but also protect its hydrophobic coating.

How to clean a shower tray?

A shower isn’t just the enclosure, but also the tray with a waste that carries the water away to the drain. That’s why the shower tray is very often covered in limescale too. How do you clean it?

For the shower tray, it’s also worth going for a soft microfibre cloth—especially if you have a lacquered model that could be easily scratched. You can use vinegar or citric acid as your cleaning agents here too, but a more convenient solution can be a homemade paste made from bicarbonate of soda. Mix 3 tablespoons of bicarb with 1 tablespoon of water to get a thick paste, then spread it over the tray. Leave it there for about an hour, then rinse thoroughly. And that’s it!

Cleaning the shower waste

The shower waste—the outlet that drains water collecting in the tray—is also exposed to limescale deposits. That’s not the only risk, though, that can seriously impede proper drainage. It very often gets blocked, for example by hair or larger debris washed off your body. Combined with built-up limescale, these become a major problem.

How do you clean the waste in the shower tray? First, clear the plug of trapped hair and other debris. This is usually very simple and can be done by hand (or with the help of, say, a cocktail stick). The next step is to descale the waste. As with the screen and the tray, you can go for home remedies or reach for a specialist product. The important thing is to remove the limescale that has built up on it thoroughly.

Now that you know how to wash the shower and get rid of the limescale, it’s time to get cracking! Remember that being consistent with cleaning, and rinsing the shower after each use to get rid of soap residue, will save you from heavy scrubbing. Keep on top of it regularly and it will be much quicker and more effective.