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You shouldn’t overlook the shower door tracks in your bathroom, as they are one of the hardest areas to keep clean. They are notorious for accumulating hair, mold, mildew, soap scum, algae, and just plain old dirt in the ducts if not scrubbed regularly. Can you just give us a yuck? You may already have the answer to dirty tracks in your bathroom. This is not your expensive face oil, sorry. It’s the boring toothpaste tube you grab every morning and night. At least since conventional cleaners are more affordable, you won’t want to. However, if you are short on cleaners and have visitors coming to your place tomorrow, this will do the job successfully.
So, what exactly is in this common household item to clean grimy shower door tracks? You may be surprised to hear that toothpaste contains some chemicals that are also found in household cleaning products. Abrasives are small particles suspended in a paste or liquid. Examples of these particles include sodium bicarbonate, which is similar to baking soda and is used in household cleaners, aluminum hydroxide, calcium hydrogen phosphates, calcium carbonate, silica, and hydroxyapatite.
These particles are used to clean teeth and can also be used to scrub bathroom surfaces. Another group of substances are surfactants or detergents, such as sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) and sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS). These ingredients give toothpaste and many other cleaning products their foamy, cleansing effect. And finally, some toothpastes contain triclosan or similar antimicrobial ingredients zinc chloride, as do many cleaning products.
Read more: 15 Genius Hacks That Will Keep Your Shower Squeaky Clean
A bathroom essential that will quickly revive grimy shower door tracks
Get Cleaning
If you want to try this, use a traditional white toothpaste that contains herbs, charcoal, or the like instead of gel or toothpaste. Bonus: It’s usually the least expensive toothpaste on the shelf! Walmart is selling a three-pack of Colgate Whitening Toothpaste with Peroxide and Baking Soda for $5.47.
Three 4-ounce bottles of Tom’s Whole-Care Natural Toothpaste are available on Amazon for $12.19. You can get away with using whatever you have on hand because this is a tip that you can use quickly and because most toothpastes contain the same ingredients, even if the toothpaste that comes out of the bottle is translucent green. Look for any abrasives or surfactants mentioned above in the ingredients list.
Let’s get started on clearing mold-blocked shower door tracks! When you realize that an an electric toothbrush is an essential item when cleaning your bathroom. this process starts to feel like your morning routine. Any other small head brush that fits in the thin track channel works perfectly, as well as a regular old manual toothbrush that has been retired from duty.
Squeeze a generous amount of toothpaste onto the brush head or directly onto the track and then move the brush back and forth across the track. Tilt your head slightly to get straight into the crack in the track. After using clean water to flush the track, wipe away any remaining residue with a microfiber cloth that has just been dampened. If the initial results do not meet your expectations, repeat the process.
Why This May Not Be The Best Cleaning Option
The purpose of toothpaste is to clean teeth, not shower walls. Since toothpaste is inserted into the mouth, the amount of cleaning, scrubbing and antibacterial chemicals in the tube is directly related to the safety of human health. Otherwise, it is less. Bathroom cleaning products are designed for use on glass, ceramic, stone or shower door tracks, metal surfaces. There’s a good reason why you should wear a mask, gloves, and long sleeves when cleaning. This protects your skin and lungs from harmful reactions caused by the active ingredients in bathroom cleansers, which can be in significant concentrations.
This makes it a good “last minute” option, for example, if you need to clean your bathroom right away and have run out of your usual bathroom cleaner. If you’re desperate for a solution and have tried every commercial cleaning product in your neighborhood grocery store to clean door tracks, toothpaste is also a good idea. After removing trapped grime and mud, regular care with standard cleaning agents is sufficient. Cost—or, more accurately, cost-effectiveness is another factor. The cost of a tube of toothpaste is comparable to a full spray bottle of bathroom cleaner.
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