to ask you how to keep the toilet free of below waterline stains without nasty chemicals?

[fluffylampbear]

I'm so fed up of using toilet duck or nasty harsh and dangerous chemicals, but I can't seem to find a good natural way to keep the horrid stains out of my loo without using them.

I'm in an area prone to limescale and stains below the waterline. So my loo quickly builds a nasty brown stain on it.

I don't wish to empty out the toilet bowl and sand it.

Is there another natural way? I hate toilet brushes because I think they are wasteful and full of plastic so I use one of the silicon ones which is not as great but at least can be easily cleaned and does not need recycling every few months. It's not that effective at scrubbing.

Does anyone have any good tips?

I have tried coca cola, vinegar, bicarb but without success, maybe the loo is too stained or I am doing it wrong? Is there a special method?

OP have you tried the silicone toilet brush, nothing sticks and they're kept dry.
joseph and joseph do them.

I just use bleach, so chemicals unfortunately

I've been using citric acid for years. Put warm water in the bowl, add citric acid, leave for a bit and scrub. In fact, when I say scrub it doesn't involve much work - I just use a cloth, but we are not in a hard water area. The outside of the toilet gets cleaned with soapy water (from bar soap - Marseilles soap usually) with some drops of essential oil added. Lavender, lemon or pine typically.

I can't see the sense in mixing citric acid with bicarbonate, since they neutralise each other. You end up with carbon dioxide (hence the bubbles) plus salt and water. Looks impressive, but surely it's more efficacious to use those two excellent chemicals separately.

If you use citric acid, the acid reacts to dissolve the limescale, neutralising itself in the process, so there are no harsh chemicals being flushed away.

Incidentally, this is why fizzy drinks work too, they contain citric acid.

We bought a very strong acid which is sold for cleaning professionals and used that to get rid of the layer of limescale.

Once that's gone you can go back to using less harsh products, like weaker acids (e.g. vinegar, soft drinks) as long as you keep on top of it ie clean bowl properly 1-2 times a week.

The problem is that the limescale that will build up at first is white so it is very difficult to see. So you don't think to remove it and then it builds up more laters, the limescale is rough so it gets stained easily, but if you wait until you can see brown stains then it's too late, you've already got layers of limescale there and it will be hard to get off.

Agree don't use bicarb at the same time as this defeats the point! Lime dissolves in acid, not alkaline.

Check out Nancy Birtwhistle on Insta. She was a Great British Bake Off winner, but has since published 3 books on great cleaning, cleaning and gardening. She shares a lot of it on Insta though. Citric Acid and her Pure Magic (recipe on Insta) are what you need for your toilet.

Regular use of toilet brush.

I use a silicon brush nothing sticks to mine.

you can wash the loo brush after using it by flushing the loo and turning it under the running water. Do it several times if you are worried. Then You can put a bit of bleach in the loo brush holder so it is sitting in germ killing bleach. It’s totally ridiculous and wasteful to throw them away before they actually fall apart.

I just use some limescale removing harpic once a month or so to keep on top of the limescale. It doesn’t need to be daily use.

Pour in loads of vinegar before bed. Leave overnight. Scrub in the morning.

This cleaned years of limescale from mine. The most difficult bit was explaining to DH that no he can’t do his midnight wee in there.

I think with the coke it's needs to be empty first to work well

Loads of white vinegar poured down there and left overnight. Works a treat.

Coke is supposed to be good at shifting stains (hence why I don't drink the stuff as it's actually nasty stuff). I've never tried coke down the loo to vouch for it however. A problem with coke for regular cleaning is that the sugar actually feeds germs growth.

Vinegar is supposed to good for germ kill but I can't imagine it would have the required contact time with germs to do the killing as it would slide straight down. Hence why bleach is thick so it clings to the surface to get the germ contact time.

Take the water out of the toilet bowl ( I push the water through the bend with the toilet brush). Then use vinegar, preferably overnight.

@Letitbebread "It’s totally ridiculous and wasteful to throw them away before they actually fall apart."

If you read my OP and posts, you might see that several times through this thread I've reiterated I don't use a regular brush, I use a silicone brush which does not require changing and I've had it for about 7 or so years. I'm not throwing away hundreds of loo brushes. The genius thing about the silicone one, if you read my OP and later posts, is that it can be easily and fully cleaned.

Denture tablets but i gave up because the packaging just seemed so unnecessarily wasteful. I did get it to gleaming (from absolutely caked on limescale) for a while though.

Don rubber gloves and use a pumice block - wet it first, then scrub gently. These pumice blocks are much softer than the ones for feet, and will therefore wear away fairly quickly. Will completely remove the limescale ring though - I use these a lot, especially where people have only been using bleach (which is a terrible idea in a hard water area):

Pumice blocks for toilets etc.

I've had good results with both cola and any kind of vinegar if I empty the bowl first. I soak old cloths or kitchen roll in them and leave these pressed against the limescaly bits overnight or for a few hours. The only thing is the limescale seems to come back quite quickly so maybe it's not working as well as it seems.

I'm such an untidy horrible goblin - can't believe I just contributed to a thread about cleaning - a proud moment.

Sorry, posted too soon and meant to add that these type of pumice blocks can be used anywhere within the bowl - you just need to keep them wet to avoid scratching. Staining is usually caused by the presence of limescale (and PP have mentioned natural things that will help keep this at bay, such as citric acid and distilled white vinegar) but if there’s quite a lot to start with, pumice will really shift it.

Alternatively, Ecover Power Toilet Cleaner (approx £2.50 for 700ml) is probably the best of the biodegradable ones I’ve tried.