Mix A Common Kitchen Ingredient With Epsom Salt For A Sparkling Toilet Bowl

Cleaning the toilet bowl is probably one of your least favorite home chores. From the overpowering smell of chemical cleaners to snapping on rubber gloves to scrub away at hard water stains, there's not much to love about the weekly task that keeps the toilet bowl spick and span. But chances are, in your pantry, you already have an ingredient that makes this chore a breeze: baking soda!

Also known as sodium bicarbonate, this type of salt has a unique but gentle grittiness that earns baking soda its reputation as a go-to home cleaning ingredient. Together with its basic pH, this grittiness allows baking soda to easily scrub away grime without scratching delicate surfaces, like a toilet bowl's porcelain. It even neutralizes tough bathroom odors. Meaning, together with Epsom salt's abrasiveness, baking soda is the key ingredient in a natural home cleaner for everything from soap scum to stains in your toilet bowl. Plus, it's safe to use around kids and pets, ranking it among the ultimate home cleaning ingredients.

Whipping up this go-to cleaning concoction is simple. You only need three ingredients, all of which are likely already in your bathroom or kitchen cabinets. Mix 1 cup of Epsom salt and ½ cup of baking soda into a small bowl or glass jar. If you want to make your bathroom cleaning routine even easier, double (or triple!) the recipe and store the excess in a mason jar with your bathroom cleaning equipment. You can also add a dash of dish soap to your toilet alongside each salt and baking soda measurement to help the solution stick to vertical surfaces and add cleaning power. 

When you're ready to start cleaning, sprinkle the mixture over the open toilet bowl, making sure to fully cover the surface. Let it sit for about an hour to give the abrasive salts time to disintegrate any grime. This wait time is key to easily achieving a clean toilet bowl that sparkles. Letting these ingredients sit means less scrubbing for you later that day or even the next morning if you have tricky stains that need more time to break up. When you're ready, grab a clean toilet brush and start scouring. Because the ingredients had time to do their work, any grime should easily loosen away with a few scrubs of the toilet brush. Once it has, flush to reveal your sparkling toilet bowl!