Homeownership is no easy feat, and comes with a tremendous amount of maintenance responsibilities – with cleaning the bathroom being one of them. And, when it comes to maintaining the cleanliness of your bathroom, you likely keep up with the regular tasks – cleaning the toilet bowl, wiping down your sink and vanity, and giving your tub, shower, and tile a good scrubbing. But when was the last time you cleaned your actual showerhead?
While it may seem like an oxymoron (don’t you head into the shower to get clean?), your showerhead needs some love and a deep cleaning every now and then to maintain water pressure, and ensure your water supply is being filtered properly. So how – and how often – do you need to be cleaning your showerhead? Read on as we break it down step-by-step for you!
Why (and When) Your Showerhead Needs a Good Scrubbing
We know what you’re thinking – your showerhead is up high enough to avoid coming into contact with anything other than soap and water, so shouldn’t it clean itself? While we wish this were true, it’s actually quite the opposite.
Without cleaning your showerhead, you’re not only decreasing the effectiveness of your water pressure. You’re also risking sediment and minerals entering the water supply, along with hard water residue and soap scum. Over time, this can grow Mycobacterium, a bacteria that causes lung-disease which can grow in the slime inside the showerhead nozzle. Without cleaning the showerhead, you’re putting yourself and your family at risk of breathing in that harmful bacteria every time you shower!
To minimize that risk, aim to clean your showerhead once a month (don’t worry, we’ll show you how easy it is!).
How to Clean Your Showerhead
Step 1 – Gather Your Supplies
Thankfully, cleaning your showerhead is a task that requires minimal effort, and can be done using nontoxic items already found in your home:
- A large ziplock or plastic food bag
- Distilled white vinegar
- Baking soda
- A rubber band or two
- A clean cloth
- A cleaning brush (or soft bristled toothbrush)
Step 2 – Submerge Your Showerhead
Begin by filling your plastic ziplock bag about halfway with vinegar and a few teaspoons of baking soda. These two ingredients work together to tackle sediment buildup and hard water, along with acting as a natural disinfectant.
Place the bag around your showerhead and secure it with your rubber bands. Don’t worry if some vinegar leaks out in the process, so long as the shower head is fully submerged.
Step 3 – Let Your Showerhead Soak
Let your showerhead soak in the baking soda and vinegar solution for at least three hours (even better if you can let it sit overnight!). The longer it sits, the more time the solution has to break down sediment and buildup, while fighting harmful bacteria.
Step 4 – Scrub and Rinse
When you’re ready, remove the bag from your showerhead and let the vinegar and baking soda solution pour down the tub drain (it’s nontoxic and completely harmless!). Next, take your cleaning brush or soft-bristled toothbrush to give the surface and tiny holes in your showerhead a good scrub.
Follow it up by wiping down the top and surface of your showerhead with a damp, clean cloth, and then turn on your shower and let it run for about a minute to rinse out any excess baking soda and vinegar.
And that’s it! With just a few natural ingredients and minimal scrubbing required, your showerhead will be good as new in no time (until next month, at least!).
