Battling limescale in the bathroom is a battle on all fronts, with chalky taps, shower heads and grimy toilets in constant need of cleaning. Limescale, primarily composed of calcium and magnesium compounds, can leave brown stains inside a toilet bowl.
These unsightly brown marks can give the impression that your home is not well-maintained, even if you clean regularly. One woman, desperate to remove the “thick” limescale stainin her toilet, previously reached out to the Mrs Hinch Cleaning Tips and Tricks Facebook group. She posted a photo of her brown-stained loo, all of which was below the water line, and asked: “Anyone able to suggest anything to me?”
She added: “My toilet has had thick limescale since we moved in last year… I have got the worst of it off with bicarbonate of soda and vinegar. Sadly this is the end result and no more will come off! It looks awful and I hate it! Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated.”
Her plea garnered numerous responses, with many cleaning enthusiasts recommending one natural solution: citric acid.
One member of the Facebook group offered a useful tip: “We used everything and literally the only thing that cleared it up is using citric acid.”
Echoing this advice, another person shared her own success story: “I had the exact same and couldn’t seem to shift it with baking soda and vinegar. What worked was removing as much water out of the toilet as possible and leaving it as long as possible with citric acid.”
One individual suggested: “Empty the water out of the toilet, fill it with citric acid and leave it overnight and when you flush the toilet it will all come off. I did it to a toilet last week and I was so shocked by how easy it came away.”
Expressing empathy, another woman shared: “I live in a very hard water area and this can happen so easily if not kept on top of. But when it was that thick the only way I could get rid was to use citric acid and using it regularly has kept it away.”
A different recommendation was Black Harpic Power Plus, which can be found in supermarkets like Sainsbury’s, Asda and Waitrose. A fellow cleaning enthusiast gleefully advised: “Put it in overnight, it peels off the next morning. So satisfying!”.