Limescale can make even the cleanest toilets look unpleasant and difficult to remove with scrubbing alone.
Unsightly limescale deposits accumulate in the toilet bowl when hard water evaporates, leaving calcium and magnesium residue behind.
Fortunately, there are simple methods to eliminate it, with fans of cleaning influencer Mrs Hinch sharing their top tips on social media.
Sharing their wisdom in a Facebook group, cleaning enthusiast Vicki Fincher recommended Harpic, a product readily available in any major supermarket.
“It is great but I also use thick bleach and bicarbonate of soda left for a few hours or overnight. Comes up a treat!” Katherine Stanley concurred, stating that Black Harpic works best for her. “Also denture tablets and scrub with a pumice stone,” she suggested.
“When white, keep clean with a spray bottle of white vinegar. This also cleans the seat and outside the toilet,” she advised. Alison Kitts praised Harpic as “amazing.”
The professional cleaner recently revealed she used it at a client’s house where “the bottom of the toilet was so bad”, but after letting it sit and using the toilet brush, “it all chipped off”. Another cleaning devotee, Yvonne Gray, “highly” endorsed Harpic.
For those who think plain bleach is the answer, a home-cleaning enthusiast remarked, “Bleach won’t get rid of limescale; it will just whiten it.”
Rebecca Sylvester shared that her husband drained the water out, then applied Black Harpic overnight, flushed the next morning, and it was gone. “I didn’t even need to scrub! It’s been white ever since!” she explained.
Experts at Harpic have warned that limescale can accumulate around the toilet rim, meaning “although you may only see a few hints of the residue, it could be allowing much less water into the bowl for every flush”. They offered a tip to tackle “stubborn” toilet limescale: “A great tip for application is using your hands – with rubber gloves of course – instead of a toilet brush.
“It may sound unappealing but it will mean you can reach the water inlets under the rim and ensure as much water comes into the bowl with each flush.”
They advocate using Harpic 100 percent Limescale Remover and Harpic Power Plus which, they claim, unlike bleach – “which just bleaches the colour out of limescale” – eradicates build-ups in the toilet.
Catherine Paine recounted her struggle, stating that only “cheap bleach” did the trick for her loo. “I moved into a house back in 1980. A young couple had lived there previously. The toilet absolutely stank, like a public gents.
“I tried all the expensive ‘then’ toilet cleaners. Nothing worked… Asked the cleaner at work. Told me cheap bleach. It finally worked.”
