Simply pour a kettle of almost boiling water into the bowl, follow up with 250ml of citric acid, and leave it for some hours – preferably overnight. The next day, scrub and flush. What's good for those caked-on pots and pans after cooking dinner is also good for removing a brown stain on the bottom of the toilet bowl.
Green or brown stains in the toilet usually indicate lime buildup. Lime scale forms as hard water evaporates and leaves a mineral buildup behind. As it dries, it picks up any dirt particles along with it, and slowly the stain builds, layer by layer, on the inside of the toilet bowl. Yuck!
To use bicarbonate of soda and vinegar to clean limescale from below the waterline, you first need to make a paste. Grab a bowl and add equal parts of bicarbonate of soda and vinegar. For this cleaning task, the more, the merrier, pour vinegar (about 1 litre) and a few cups of bicarb will work fine.
Limescale is normally white, but the mineral deposits in the toilet such as iron, calcium, magnesium and lime will turn the limescale brown or green.
Because of the residue's natural properties which are predominantly alkaline, the acidity of the vinegar is great for neutralizing limescale.
Apply vinegar or lemon juice directly onto a cloth and scrub the limescale until it comes away. Alternatively, mix one part lemon juice or vinegar to four parts water. Put the solution in a spray bottle and spritz it onto tiles and plugholes. Leave this to soak for up to an hour for stubborn scale deposits.
When cleaning a toilet bowl, WD-40 works by softening the rust and lime deposits, so they can be easily wiped away. You don't need to use much of it. Simply spray on the affected area, wait a minute or two and brush it away with a regular toilet brush.
Bleach – Common bleach is one of the best friends of the household. It can remove tough stains, brighten darkened surfaces, disinfect, and it kills basically everything. So it would be understandable as to why so many people think it works. The truth is that it doesn't actually remove the limescale.
To remove limescale from the bottom of your toilet you will want to pour vinegar into your toilet bowl and leave that on there for three to four hours. After the vinegar sits, you can scrub those stains with either a toilet brush or a wet pumice stone and flush the toilet.
The one-two punch of hydrogen peroxide cleans stains and kills germs, leaving your toilet bright, white, and healthy. Pour a half-cup of hydrogen peroxide into the toilet and let it sit for 30 minutes. Use your toilet brush to scrub the stains.
You can use straight or a diluted vinegar cleaning solution for the bathroom to clean bacteria, especially around the toilet. Cleaning with a mixture of baking soda and vinegar in the bathroom can work really well. To clean your toilet with vinegar, pour a cup of vinegar in the toilet bowl and let sit overnight.
To safely and inexpensively clean your toilet bowls, pour a generous glug of vinegar, followed by a heavy sprinkling of baking soda, into the bowl. While the mixture is bubbling up, scrub the bowl (get under the rim, too). Let it soak for 30 minutes and flush. That's it.
Vinegar and baking soda
Pour about one cup of white vinegar into the toilet bowl, followed by about one cup of baking soda, then let it rest for around 10 minutes. It's a good idea to wear gloves when using this as a toilet cleaner and to have eye protection.
Pour a half cup of bicarbonate of soda into and around the bowl and let it sit for at least 15 minutes. Then, apply white vinegar over the baking soda. This produces a fizzing reaction that activates the acid and can break down the most stubborn build-ups of limescale.
Hard water contains high amounts of dissolved minerals, including calcium and magnesium. As water flows through your pipes, some of those calcium and magnesium minerals get left behind. Over time, those minerals can build up, causing unsightly stains and scaling.
The best way to tackle this problem is with an acidic solution, which can cut through the limescale. This can be achieved by using household products like baking soda and white vinegar.
Lemon juice and vinegar are both acidic, meaning that they can break down the calcium carbonate that limescale is made from.
Hydrochloric acid is much stronger than acetic acid, for example, and therefore tends to remove scale faster. Weak acids such as acetic or citric acids may be preferred, however, where damage to the substrate is to be minimised.
White vinegar is the best for cleaning as it is more refined. It has less of a vinegary smell and will have more cleaning power. It is slightly more expensive than malt vinegar. Are there other benefits to vinegar?
Limelite is one that is good for kitchens and bathrooms and will normally remove that ugly white residue from taps, sinks, and showers. For really hard and stubborn limescale you will need a acid based limescale remover such as Harpic, which will blast away limescale from places like toilet bowls.
A ratio of 1:3 of vinegar to water is best. Leave it for up to 30 minutes and scrub the residue off and wipe the surface with a soft cloth.