The Easy, Nontoxic Way to Clean a Fabric Shower Curtain Liner
Fabric shower curtain liners get stained easily but usually don’t wash well. Use this one simple trick to freshen up your fabric shower curtain liner anytime it becomes stained with soap, mildew, bath products, or hard water.
You know that awesome feeling of admiring a clean bathroom that sparkles with natural freshness? There’s such a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that goes with it.
Spotless mirrors and surfaces. Bright white porcelain. A stain-free toilet bowl. Bathroom bliss.
Tell me I’m not the only one who adores a clean bathroom this much.
Bet then there’s that rascally shower curtain liner. It does an important job, keeping water, soap, shampoo, and conditioner from splashing on to your floor. Without it, the bathroom would be a mess.
But sometimes the shower curtain liner is a really a mess of its own.
It can get scummy from those bath and shower products. Hard water can leave mineral stains. Instead of being bright white, it gets dingy with hints of orange-y yuck. And perhaps, when it’s really seen better days, you notice a bit of mildew along the bottom.
Not that any of us busy mommas could neglect our dearest fabric shower curtain liners like that. Ahem.
But just throwing it in the washing machine doesn’t get it clean. The stains might fade, but if you really want to clean a fabric shower curtain liner, you need to give it a little more TLC. And I have just the (easy) way to do that!
When you make the effort to clean your bathroom naturally and without any toxic cleaning products (or have your children do it like my subscribers do… win!), you might be left with quite the conundrum when it comes to a fabric shower curtain liner.
These fabric liners don’t off-gas like plastic and PVC versions, which is great. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit they can be a pain to clean, which isn’t so great.
Momma friend, you and I both know that discovering the super ninja secrets of perfectly clean shower curtain liners wasn’t on your agenda today. You just want an easy way to get it spruced up without yucky chemicals so that you don’t have to buy a new liner every few months or live with a lingering wonder about what might be growing on the one you have now.
Be puzzled no longer. The answer is quite simple!
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The Easy Formula for a Clean Fabric Shower Curtain Liner
Powdered oxygen bleach, hot water, and a good soak is all it really needs.
Powdered oxygen bleach, the only super ninja secret you need here, may be best known by the brand name Oxiclean, but there are other options from Bio Kleen, Charlie’s Soap, Molly’s Suds, and more. You can even find budget-friendly generic brands in some stores.
It’s a safe, nontoxic way to deodorize, remove stains, and brighten both whites and colored fabrics. And yes, it will brighten and clean your fabric shower curtain liner, too!
For years I kept a naturally clean home without using powdered oxygen bleach, but I have yet to find anything that works so well for stains and scummy shower curtain liners. I’m never without it now!
The process is as easy as the formula, so you’ll be enjoying your clean fabric shower curtain liner in no time.
First, you start with a neglected, stained fabric shower curtain liner. That’s mine above. It had quite the orange tint at the bottom and was splotched with soap, shampoo, and conditioner residue. It actually looks much nicer in the photo than it did in real life before I treated it.
Next, get your powdered oxygen bleach and add a scoop (about 1/4-1/2 cup) to a very large bowl that’s big enough for your shower curtain liner to fit in completely. Dissolve the powder into about 1 gallon of very hot water. If your bowl is really big and you can add another gallon of hot water, just add a second scoop of oxygen bleach.
Put your shower curtain liner in the water with the bottom hem going in first. The bottom of the liner will have the worst stains, so you want to be sure it gets the most contact with the hot water and oxygen bleach. Let it soak for 3 or more hours. Overnight is fine.
You can also soak your shower curtain liner in your washing machine if it allows. Our washing machine doesn’t put out very hot water, though, so I use the bowl method.
After it has soaked for a while, agitate it in the bowl and take a look at that water. Ewww! When ours has been really neglected, the water even has a scummy smell to it.
At this point, you can either get ready to wash it if one oxygen bleach treatment did the trick, or drain this water off and start a new soak. I like to soak our liner twice because (confession time) I just don’t deep clean it as often as it needs. After a second soak, it’s time to wash it in the washing machine.
To wash it, follow the instructions on the tag. I clean ours on gentle with a free and clear laundry detergent (never homemade laundry detergent!) and another scoop of oxygen bleach for good measure.
Once it’s washed, you can either hang it up in the shower to dry or hang it up outside on a sunny day to reduce any remaining stains. When ours is really bad, I like to give it at least some time in the sun.
After all that, you should have a much cleaner fabric shower curtain liner! It is entirely possible that it won’t end up being as bright as the day you bought it, but there will be a dramatic difference.
After its last cleaning, ours kept a slightly orange tint right in its bottom middle section, despite lots of soaking and sunning. This is likely because I hadn’t given it a good cleaning in a year. Yep, sometimes I feel like I can’t keep up, too.
But if you do this monthly (or perhaps more realistically, every few months), you’ll probably only need to soak your liner once before washing and it will likely stay quite stain-free. Best of all, you can keep it that way without any of the nasty chemicals you want to avoid.
