I have stained the toilet bowl by leaving a yellow cleaning gel on

[MaryPlain59]

I have a new toilet and bought a different cleaning product to normal as they had no bleach at the time, it was a bottle of thick yellow toilet cleaning gel from Asda. I stupidly squirted it around under the rim afterwards and left it to drip down thinking it would give an extra clean and sparkle. Now I am left with lots of awful yellow streaks which I can't remove, I have tried rubbing them with white wine vinegar and normal thick clear bleach but they actually look worse and the yellow is looking more yellowy brown the more I try to get rid of the marks. Could anyone suggest anything else I can do please?

The marks are on the ceramic bowl, not anything made of plastic? Products containing bleach can stain plastics. I'd contact Asda's customer services for advice.

Yes they are on the bowl itself, I squirted the gel underneath the rim and left it to run down into the bottom of the toilet bowl. Thank you for replying.

do you think the gel may have stained limescale? Cleaners can soak into that but don't penetrate the glaze unless eroded.

It sounds more like the new loo than the loo cleaner gel. A new loo should not be able to stain from cleaning fluids. How long did you leave the gel for?

Thank you both for replying, I left the gel on overnight. Yes It may have soaked into faint limescale that I hadn't noticed, I've just had a cookie advert for Magic Sponges come up and when I googled them I wonder if I could try one on this problem but am not sure if they might leave scratch marks.

Is it a brand new loo or is it a loo in a new home? Leaving it overnight should not stain the loo.

Harpic in the black bottle is good at getting rid of limescale.

Flash magic erasers. I haven't found anything yet that they don't remove! And they're not abrasive so shouldnt scratch anything.

It is a year old but I have kept it pristine as for many years I had an old toilet which although was always clean was inherited as quite stained and scratched so when I got this new one I have always wanted to keep it sparkling as I used to be quite embarrassed about visitors using the old one. I wonder if limescale was faintly building up without me noticing and the gel adhered to it over the 12 hours I left it on. I am going to buy a magic eraser and try that. Thank you all so much for your help

when a coloured gel soaks into limescale it is difficult to remove. You might find the glaze underneath is also roughened.

You can get colourless or white WC cleaners, some are marked "baking soda." There is a Harpic White and Shine and the own-brand Tesco version in a white bottle.

I would suggest if it is limescale you buy 100% limescale cleaner. I always remove all water from loo, put it on, use old dishwasher brush to scrub lghtly, leave half hour then fludh. Be careful not to let the limescale remover drip on floor or get on hands and clean off quickly if it does. Asda should also help.
Ket us know how it cleans up

Thank you both, I will.

Bottle of the black Harpic, squirt that all over, leave it overnight if possible then scrub with a loo brush before you flush - your toilet will be sparkling white, I promise

Fantastic, thanks

Did any of the suggestions work??

I experimented using a blue limescale removing gel on a fairly old pan, which soaked into either invisible white scale, or possibly a roughened glaze on the porcelain, and would not wash away with even softened water.

I then tried "white and shine" which is a colourless bleach and baking soda treatment, and it bleached out the colour of the gel. The rough surface on the glaze remains, though.

Just to update in case anyone else has a similar problem to say what has worked for me and to thank you all so much for your help - I bought a Magic Eraser and can't believe how it has removed the drip marks it was like a miracle. I have bought the black Harpic, they didn't have the white bottle in Asda or Wilkinson and have given it a good scub and the whole bowl is gleaming now. When I was using the eraser I saw that there was faint limescale there, I think it is because I stopped having a toilet brush after reading a thread on here a while back but can now see that just putting bleach etc round the toilet isn't enough I need to rub it in as well so will go back to using one. Thank you again for all the advice, it wasn't a big problem but to me I hated the way I had spoilt the toilet after being ashamed of the other one for so long so I am really happy and grateful that you have helped me resolve this.