My house has hard water and unfortunately the hard water stains on our fiberglass shower insert was a whole new experience for me. Soon after we moved into our first house we had a water softener installed because we were worried about hard water running through all of the small parts of the high efficiency on-demand hot water system we had. We also had a tiled shower, so cleaning the shower was super easy. After we sold and moved into our current house we didn’t really feel like we needed one as we had a different heating system and other projects took priority.

It wasn’t long before I realized how much of a pain a fiberglass shower insert was to clean…especially when you have hard water. Although we are far from being a zero-waste household I do try to use natural or environmentally friendly products when I can. However, I feel like I tried everything on the market to clean the shower as potent cleaning products should be “more effective” right? No matter what I used nothing seemed to work and the shower still looked dirty. Now that we only had one full bathroom that guests would have to share, I was embarrassed.

After trying the “potent” cleaning supplies, I decided to try some natural concoctions. I scoured Pinterest for ideas and nothing seemed to work; even spraying vinegar and dish soap in the shower which is usually an amazing cleaning combination. Since most natural cleaning involves vinegar, I was doubtful I would find anything that works.

Because I was doubtful of finding anything that would make my shower “clean” again, I do not have any before and after pictures. You’ll just have to take my word for it and try it out for yourself.

So what did I finally end up using? Vinegar, lemon juice, and a whole lot of elbow grease! I know what you’re thinking. I said earlier that vinegar, dish soap, and cornstach did not work for me, so why vinegar now? To be honest, I think the reason why the vinegar, dish soap, and cornstarch spray did not work for me was that letting it “set” for the recommended time just made it dry out and using any sort of water to wet it down just created a whole lot of “dish soapiness” to be smeared all over the shower. The dish soap alone was difficult enough to clean from the tub.

Instead, I soaked some towels in vinegar and laid them over the soap scum and hard water stains and let it sit for 15 minutes. The towels then “trap” the vinegar on the areas that need cleaning, preventing it from drying out. I then came back and scrubbed down the tub. This would have probably worked in itself just fine as I could see evidence of it working (from what was on the cloths I was using to clean). However there was almost a 1.5 years of hard water stains on the shower and I didn’t put that much elbow grease into it.

I then took some lemon juice that I had and squirted it all over the problem areas and let that sit for another 15 minutes. I did not use rags for this however it would probably work even better if you did. I then came back and used a TON of elbow grease and now my shower is absent of hard water stains and soap scum.

If you clean your soap scum and hard water stains regularly, it definitely won’t take as much elbow grease as mine did. Seriously, my arms hurt afterwards. Now that I’ve found something that works, I will definitely be using this to clean the shower at the first sight of hard water stains or soap scum re-appearing.

Do you use something else for hard water or soap scum stains that works well? I’d love to hear of any cleaning tips you may have!