How to Clean Your Bathtub Like a Pro (And Avoid a Common Mistake)

Life in Chicago moves fast, and keeping your space clean can feel like a constant battle. Between work, family, and trying to enjoy the city, who has time for a deep clean? If you’re staring at a grimy bathtub wondering where to start, this guide is for you.

What is Soap Scum and Why is it in My Tub?

If your tub feels gritty or looks a little gray, you’re dealing with soap scum. It doesn’t mean you’re dirty—it’s a natural buildup from bath products, body oils, dead skin cells, and hard water minerals that cling to the surface and dry there. The good news? It’s totally manageable with the right approach. For those times when you need a more thorough solution, consider our deep cleaning help to get your bathroom sparkling.

Your Simple DIY Bathtub Cleaning Solution

You don’t need expensive, harsh chemicals to get your tub looking amazing. Here’s an inexpensive, effective recipe you can whip up in minutes.

What You’ll Need:

• Baking Soda
• Dish Soap
• Optional: Orange Essential Oil (for a fresh scent)
• Non-scratch Sponge
• Microfiber Cloth

The Cleaning Process

Start by mixing equal parts baking soda and dish soap in a bowl—about a tablespoon of each works well. Add a few drops of essential oil if you’d like a fresh scent. When you’re ready for a more consistent clean without the DIY effort, our professional home cleaning team is just a click away.

Application is Key: Wet your sponge until it’s almost dripping—this helps spread the product evenly. Use the soft side to apply the mixture in sections, working top to bottom. You should see some foaming action, which means it’s working to break down that stubborn soap scum.

Let it Sit: Allow the mixture to work its magic for 5-10 minutes, especially if you have heavy buildup. This gives the baking soda and soap time to penetrate and loosen the grime.

Time to Scrub: Use the scrubby side of your non-scratch sponge to work in circular motions. A pro tip: fold a bath rug under your knees for comfort while you work. Need someone to handle the scrubbing? Our cleaning service near me can take care of the hard work for you.

The Secret Test for a Truly Clean Tub

How do you know when all the soap scum is gone? Run your hand over the surface. If it feels smooth with no friction, you’ve succeeded! If you still feel grittiness, keep scrubbing that area.

The Final Steps: Rinse and Dry

Use a handheld shower or a jug of water to thoroughly rinse away all the cleaning mixture and loosened grime. Then comes the most important step—drying. Use a thick, absorbent microfiber cloth to completely dry the tub surface, edges, and fixtures. This prevents water spots and mineral residue from forming.

A Cautionary Tale: What NOT to Do

Early in my cleaning career, we sent a team member to clean a brand new condo with a fiberglass tub. She used a firm bristle brush instead of a soft sponge and accidentally scratched the entire surface. We had to pay for repairs and learned a valuable lesson: always use non-abrasive tools on delicate surfaces.

This is why having experienced professionals matters. If you’d rather avoid cleaning mishaps altogether, let our Chicago-based team provide reliable apartment cleaning you can trust.

When DIY Isn’t Enough

While this DIY method works great for regular maintenance, sometimes life gets too busy for even simple cleaning tasks. That’s where we come in. As a trusted Chicago cleaning company, we offer fast cleaning services that fit your schedule. Whether you need regular maintenance or a one-time deep clean, we make it easy to schedule a cleaning that works for you.

If you’re searching for cleaning services in Chicago that you can rely on, Jikas Cleaning is here to help. We understand that sometimes you just need someone to clean my apartment so you can focus on what matters most.

Your bathtub should look and feel welcoming, clean, and frankly amazing. And if it doesn’t feel that way, this video is for you because I’m going to show you an inexpensive DIY way to get your bathtub looking absolutely gorgeous. Soap scum. Soap scum totally kills the vibe. If you feel your tub and you feel some grittiness or if you’re looking at it and you see that it’s sort of gray or brown or a little bit off color in certain areas, that my friend is soap scum and we have to get rid of it. It builds up from product, dead skin cells, body oils, and hard water minerals that have dried onto the surface. There’s an easy way to get rid of it. It takes a bit of work, but I’m going to show you how to do it and make it as simple as possible. Oh, and stick around until the end of this video when I tell you about the time that my cleaning company totally ruined someone’s brand new bathtub. Yeah, that wasn’t good. And give this video a thumbs up if you’d like to hop into a nice hot, relaxing Epsom salt bath with maybe a cup of tea or a glass of wine and just turn off the world and relax and enjoy. Thumbs up for that. Yeah. And just a quick reminder if you haven’t done so already to subscribe to the Clean MySpace channel. And a quick note to mention that this video is brought to you by Makerscle, which is our sister company. Makerscle sells premium microfiber cleaning tools and so much more. You can visit us at makerscle.com or makerscle.ca. You can see everything that we sell. You can join the email list. Lots of fun things to do over there. To make this recipe, just get a bowl and you’re going to add equal parts baking soda and dish soap. So, here I have about a tablespoon of each. And then I’m adding in some drops of orange essential oil. This is totally optional, but very nice. Now that you’ve seen my simple DIY recipe, what do you use? What’s your go-to for cleaning the tub? The cleaning aisle is full of products dedicated to dealing with soap scum and dirty tubs. And I’m curious what has been your go-to. And my hope is that maybe I’ll convince you to try this. Now, a wet sponge is key because a dry sponge is not going to spread the product around the way you need it to. Your sponge should be almost dripping wet. You’re going to apply it with the soft side of the sponge. You can see I’m just working my way up and down. You want to see this product foaming. You can’t I can’t really pick it up here on the camera, but it should be sort of foaming for you. And if it’s not foaming, add more water. Okay. So, you’re going to keep working your way around the tub, dosing out more product as necessary. Here, you can be liberal with the use of product because the more soap and baking soda that sits there, the better it can work off that soap scum. Now, I’m going to do the same thing to the base of the tub, and I’ll finish off by cleaning that area around the drain. Now that the product is sitting, let’s talk about what soap scum is. First of all, if soap scum is present in your bathroom, it doesn’t mean that you yourself are dirty. We all generate soap scum when we shower. And here’s why. It has three main components that none of us can avoid. First, soap. Any bath or body product that you are using in the shower or the tub is going to leave a residue behind. Just think about if you use too much soap on your hand and you don’t rinse it after uh scrubbing your hands clean, you’re going to have a residue. Or if you use too much soap on your floor, there’s that stickiness. Well, even when you rinse off your body, soap is going to be clinging to your tub. It’s going to be there. So, that’s number one. Number two is anything that comes off your body while we while you’re showering or bathing. dead skin cells, body oils, stuff product from your hair, whatever the case may be, that is sticking around in the tub, too. And finally, anything that is residual from evaporated water, so minerals linger behind. And what happens is these three things mix together and they sort of casually cling to the sides of the tub and as water evaporates, they hang out there. And over time, that is how soap scum builds up. Now, a pro tip is to take your bath rug and fold it up, placing it under your knees. That way, you have a bit of support when you’re doing the scrubbing. And I’m using the same technique, just working section by section, top to bottom, using an S pattern. Now, I’ve let this sit for a couple of minutes. My tub did not have a lot of soap scum, but if you have a tub that does have a lot of soap scum, you might want to let this sit for, you know, maybe 5 10 minutes. The scrubbing part is really important. I’m using the scrubby side of a non-scratch sponge here in my fiberglass tub. And a little trick you can use to see if all the soap scum is gone is to take your hand and just rub it against the surface. If you feel any friction, there’s still soap scum. If it feels smooth, you’ve done your job. I always work on the surrounds first and then I finish off with the base of the tub. Now it’s time to rinse. So, I’m using the handheld shower here to give my tub a really good rinse. I’m not even using hot water. I’m just using cold water and going for it. I’m working my way around the tub. The important part here is you want to get rid of the grittiness from the baking soda and any of the residue left behind from the soap. Now, if you don’t have a hand shower, you can get yourself a jug or a container, fill it with water, hold it straight up against the edge of the tub, and slowly pour. That’s how you can rinse. Now is one of the most important parts, and that is drying your tub. Here I’m using the Makers Clean Duo cloth, which is a thick and thirsty cloth that’s quite large, meaning it can pick up a lot of the moisture, actually all of the moisture that’s left behind. So that way there won’t be residue or there won’t be any excess moisture, which will then dry on and leave spots on the tub. I’m also using it to polish the edges of the tub as well as any of the fixtures. And what’s cool about this cloth is despite the fact that it just soaked up all of that moisture in the tub, it’s still not completely saturated. That’s why I love using this for this job. So, now you know the secret, the pro tip to get this tub clean and soap scum free so that it feels nice and glossy and relaxing and you can just chill and enjoy. Okay, let me tell you that story. But first, before I do, I want to remind you if you haven’t done so, make sure that you subscribe to our email newsletter. It’s called The Dirty Dish, and it is full of great cleaning products, tips, and tools. There’s a link to subscribe down below. All right, so the story, it was when I first started my cleaning business, and the girl who was sent to this job, it was a brand new condo. The client was very excited, and they had a fiberglass tub. So, that is not like this. that is like a plasticky feeling sort of acrylic tub. Okay? And it is a different beast. You have to clean it with a different tool. You can’t use something that’s heavy duty and hard. You can’t use something like a firm bristle brush, which is exactly what she used. You have to use a soft sponge with no abrasion so that you don’t scratch it. Anyway, this girl, bless her soul, great employee, decides to use a firm bristle brush. She had an iron handle scrub brush. I remember the exact moment. And she went in there with product and started scrubbing. And the second she did, she knew that she made a mistake. She freaked out. She called me and we had to deal with a very upset client. It was not good because what ended up happening was she scrubbed the base of the tub with these bristles and then you could see all of the scuff marks that the bristles caused at the bottom of the tub. Um, I had to pay to get the tub repaired. That was very annoying. Basically, we made no money on that cleaning. But such is life. You learn lessons. You are honest. You are humble. You move on. And that’s what happened. By the way, this week’s comment question is, do you prefer a bath or a shower? Let me know in the comments down below. For me, when I have to get the job done and when I have to wash my hair, it’s most definitely a shower. But when I just want to chill and have some me time, it is a bath. If you love what we do here at Clean My Space and you want to support my team and I, consider becoming a member. And if you’re already in the bathroom, you might as well learn how to clean a toilet. I’ve got a very efficient cleaning technique here, and it’s how to clean your toilet in 3 minutes. It’ll come up somewhere over there. And if you haven’t done so, make sure that you subscribe to the Clean MySpace channel. Thanks so much for watching and from the bathtub, I’ll see you next time.