For stubborn buildup, wipe down the surfaces using a cloth dipped in a mixture of equal parts vinegar and water. Dip a soft toothbrush into the solution to scrub around the edges. Finish by wiping the faucet with a clean, dry cloth, preventing water spots and making the surface shine.
Vinegar and baking soda are a versatile, efficient cleaning team for several spaces around the house, and kitchen and bathroom sinks are no exception. If you don't have lemon, follow your baking soda application with an undiluted vinegar spray to get rid of hard water marks and other difficult stains.
You can clean a sink with baking soda, distilled white vinegar, and dish soap to scrub away all the germs and residue. The key is to clean your kitchen sink and drain frequently enough to prevent slimy buildup, bacteria, and odors.
Start by coating the wet sink in baking soda and adding a little dish soap and hot water to your sponge. Whenever you scrub a sink, start with the sides of the basin and work your way down, pushing any grime directly into the drain. Keep adding soap and water as needed or until the surface is scum-free.
To sanitize your kitchen sink, Clorox Clean-up Cleaner with Bleach is a highly-rated go-to cleaner for hard, nonporous kitchen sink surfaces. It also removes tough stains, grease and dirt, and kills 99.9 percent of germs while eliminating odors, according to the manufacturer.
Vinegar may be a reliable natural disinfectant, but if you're looking for something with more of a kick, bleach may be the way to go. While it's not very safe for stainless steel, a bleach solution can be safe for your porcelain sink.
Get Your Plunger and Plunge it!
The black slime backing up into your sink can be caused by a clogged pipe so plunging it will remove the clog. Give it a couple of good plunges, boil a kettle of hot water then proceed to pour it down the problem area.
Hard water (rain is soft) is the presence of calcium, magnesium, lime and iron in drinking water. The microscopic iron particles, upon mixing with oxygen, form iron oxide and cling to the surface of bathtubs and sink. As they build up, they create an orange or brown stain.
1: Vinegar
The acid in the vinegar will help dissolve and soften the tough, crunchy parts (mostly a food-grease mixture), making it easier to scrub away with a soft sponge. For the best results, apply the vinegar when the surface is hot.
Try cleaning your sink with a paste of baking soda and water. You can then rinse the sink with vinegar, which will bubble and fizz. Vinegar naturally disinfects while helping remove hard water stains from your stainless steel sink. Once your sink is clean and dry, you can easily add an extra shine.
Sprinkle baking soda or Borax directly on the hard water stain in your sink, then spray on the same vinegar and water solution you used on the bathtub. Let the cleaners sit for 15 minutes, then scrub with a soft brush or sponge. (Remember to wear gloves when cleaning with Borax.)
You can also pour vinegar down the drain on its own.
Pour about 1 cup of vinegar down your drain and let it sit for 30-40 minutes. Vinegar has a very high acid content (which is why it's great on soap scum) and it will break down a good bit of the organic content that is stuck.
When you are using a baking soda and vinegar solution to clean out your drain, you are actually causing the rubber and plastic that are used for the drain's pipes to be eaten away by the mixture. Over time, this rubber and plastic will break down, causing the drain to become even more blocked.
Bacteria from your waste lines stick to the walls in your bathroom drains and typically cause the black material, also called black slime, to keep clogging up your drains.
Black sludge and sewage backup
This unpleasant experience happens when there is a blockage in the line from the main sewer system or your septic tank. Since the debris cannot navigate freely through the blocked pipes, it backs up into your kitchen or bathroom sink instead.
Fill a plastic bag with half water and half vinegar, ensuring there is enough liquid to submerge the faucet head. Put the liquid-filled bag over the faucet head and secure it with a rubber band. Let stand for 30 minutes to one hour. For more sensitive fixture finishes, do not surpass 30 minutes.
With time, baking soda and vinegar may work as a natural drain cleaner on weaker drain clogs, and the benefits of regular drain cleaning can help keep your drains free of clogs. But for tough drain clogs that need to be dissolved right away, you may want to use a stronger drain cleaner, like Liquid-Plumr.
Some of the most effective household cleaners aren't meant to be mixed. You probably already know never to combine harsh chemicals like bleach and ammonia (or really, bleach and anything). But common pantry essentials that are often used for cleaning — like baking soda and vinegar — shouldn't be mixed either.
The presence of the aforementioned brown or orange slime is a good indication, but there could be iron bacteria lurking unseen in your pipe, fixtures, and appliances. To test for iron bacteria, take a clean glass, fill it with water and leave it to settle on your countertop for a short while.
It's very simple to use baking soda for this indication; you only need to wet a rag, put a bit of the baking soda in it and then scrub away. In no time, you will have cleared most of the slime. Dental floss is not only good for your teeth; you can also use it to clean the hard-to-reach areas of your plumbing.
Spray your sink down with chlorine bleach.
Dilute chlorine bleach by adding 1 teaspoon (4.9 mL) to a water filled spray bottle. Spray the surface of your sink, let the mixture sit for a few minutes and scrub with a non scratch sponge. Rinse well with water.
Pour some white distilled vinegar in a spray bottle then spray it all over the sink. Give the vinegar for about five minutes to work its magic and get rid of those stubborn water spots. Next, sprinkle some baking soda all over the sink. You can expect it to fizz a little.