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Writer's picture52Steps

25 Steps to a Clean + Healthy Home


Step 13 = Keep your shower curtain / screen clean.


I actually prefer a shower curtain to a shower screen. Gasp! There, I've admitted it.

Why?

A shower curtain (if you choose a woven polyester fabric type one, such as those in IKEA ), can be taken down and washed weekly and then re-hung and aired in the (well ventilated) bathroom to dry. A shower screen requires time-consuming scrubbing and polishing, and it never looks show-room perfect after its first use.


Wash a woven shower curtain in the washing machine, at 40 C, with a small amount of your usual detergent and Napisan of course, with a towel put in too, to add some scrubbing action. To make this a straight-forward weekly task, be sure to use C-shaped shower-curtain rings, which are easily un-hooked and re-hooked, Croydex (a trustworthy brand) sell such hooks on Amazon for a few pounds.

It is important to choose a shower rail that gives you space in the shower. (I agree that it is horrible to have a shower curtain - however sparkly clean - sticking to you in the shower!) The solution is to buy a curved shower curtain pole, which holds the shower curtain further away from you, for example the Croydex Premium Telescopic Curved Shower Rod (for approx £40, as it is worth spending extra to ensure that it does a good job, stays new-looking and doesn't fall down on you every time you try and un-hook the curtain rings).

In addition to my beloved shower curtain, I also have a narrow section of fixed shower screen, to stop the water leaking out around the shower curtain. I have my plumber to thank for that ingenious combination - he was rolling his eyes at my insistence of keeping a shower curtain when we were renovating recently, and then he came up with the solution of a narrow, fixed shower screen to stop the shower curtain leakage problem of the previous ancient bathroom.

The screen is a fixed section, as movable shower screens, unless very regularly bleach-sprayed and dried down with kitchen roll after each use, get black mould creeping into their moving parts and seals. It is a narrow section of shower screen, as full size fixed shower screens are hard to reach around to clean (or when trying to bath young children) and full size movable shower screens are an accident waiting to happen - they can be left swung out into a bathroom to be collided with.

To clean a grimy shower screen, try spraying the glass and seals, once a week, with a bleach spray, such as the swimming-pool scented 'Dettol Mould and Mildew Remover'. Leave to bleach for a few minutes and then scrub the glass with a scrubbing dish brush and the seals with an old toothbrush. Rinse well. If you want to do a deep clean, then also use a handheld squeegee to remove the moisture, spray the screen with a non-toxic glass cleaner (e.g. Method Glass Cleaner - the sister product of the one shown below) and then buff with scrunched up newspaper.

What a faff! Maybe you should consider getting a woven polyester shower curtain and letting the washing machine do the hard work...


To keep an already-cleaned shower screen clean, I suggest using a daily shower cleaner, to keep tough watermarks made by limescale at bay. It is easiest to use a leave-on shower spray, but obviously choose one without a cocktail of chemicals, so that you and your family aren't paddling in / bathing in an unpleasant residue. The 'Method Daily Shower Spray' is by far the best I've tried.

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