How To Clean Your Toilet With Citric Acid Effectively

Does your toilet have brown stains that will not shift? Worry not! Here’s how to clean your toilet with citric acid to naturally remove these stains without scrubbing.

Limescale in your loo is a massive pain. This hardened build-up of minerals starts off looking a bit grey. It’s a bit unsightly, but you figure you can live with it. It sets like cement, after all, and no amount of scrubbing with a toilet brush will shift it.

But then it turns a horrible shade of brown, and your toilet looks absolutely filthy even though you clean it frequently.

Reassuringly, that brown colour isn’t dirt. It’s simply mineral deposits in the toilet. This includes minerals such as iron, calcium, magnesium, and lime, which slowly turn the limescale brown. Still, it’s unsightly as anything, and you feel that only bleach will solve the problem.

But before you bust out the bleach, it’s important to know that bleach doesn’t remove limescale. All it does is bleach it white, so it is harder to see. For a really clean toilet, you want to remove that limescale. Here’s how to do that naturally and effectively, using citric acid:

The Weird & Wacky Ways People Use To Remove Limescale From Their Toilet

As bleach doesn’t work to remove these unsightly brown stains from your toilet naturally and effectively, I’ve heard of all sorts of wild ways that people have tried to remove brown limescale deposits.

I’ve come across people emptying cans of Coca-Cola down their loo, or using cans of WD40. Then you’ve got people scrubbing their toilets with pumice stones or sandpaper. And then there’s the wildest way of them all – using screwdrivers or chisels!

It seems that short of replacing their loo, people will go to almost any length and effort to get rid of these unsightly brown marks.

If only these people knew that you can quickly, cheaply, and easily remove brown stains and limescale deposits from your toilet, just by picking up a box of citric acid. It’s easily found in stores and online – here’s my full guide on where to buy citric acid for cleaning.

How To Clean Your Toilet With Citric Acid

All you need to do to remove limescale and stubborn brown stains from your toilet naturally is to pop some citric acid in your toilet bowl (not the cistern), wait a few hours, and give it a little scrub with a toilet brush for a gleaming finish. No chiselling involved!

Here’s the full how-to:

You Will Need

• A box of citric acid
• A kettle
• A toilet brush
• Your regular toilet cleaning product
• Rubber gloves

Method

1. Pour a full kettle of hot water down the toilet bowl. The water should not be boiling hot, as it could crack your toilet. If that happens, then you’ve got a bigger problem than just brown stains on your loo!
2. Wearing rubber gloves, carefully add around 125 grams of citric acid to your toilet bowl. It doesn’t have to be an exact amount, so don’t worry about weighing it out.
3. Leave the citric acid in the toilet bowl, without flushing, for at least one hour. My preferred method is to add the citric acid at night, just before I go to bed, so it can soak off the limescale overnight.
4. After leaving the solution to soak, flush the toilet, and then use your regular toilet cleaner and a toilet brush to scrub any remaining limescale deposits. These should come away easily without too much effort. Make sure you flush the toilet before adding your toilet cleaner, especially if it is bleach-based. Citric acid must never be mixed with bleach.
5. If your toilet is particularly stained, then it may need a second application to remove stubborn limescale deposits.

Key Safety Considerations

Whilst citric acid seems like a fairly benign substance, there are some safety considerations that you need to make.

Firstly, and most importantly, never mix citric acid with bleach. Doing so releases toxic gases that can be very harmful to your health.

And whilst citric acid is considered a natural cleaning product, it can still have some adverse effects if not handled properly. As a concentrated acid, it can irritate your airways, eyes, and skin. As such, you should avoid breathing in any citric acid powder and wear rubber gloves when handling it. Don’t rub your eyes after handling citric acid, and keep the powder away from children and pets.

You can read more about citric acid and the dos and don’ts for cleaning with it in my guide to cleaning with citric acid.

Don’t want to use citric acid? Try my guide to the best eco-friendly toilet cleaners.

How Citric Acid Works To Clean Your Toilet Effectively

This method works to clean your toilet because of a few key points.

Firstly, the heat of the hot water helps to loosen the limescale. This makes it easier for the citric acid to get in and about and dissolve the limescale.

Secondly, when it comes to chemical reactions in science, generally, higher temperatures mean faster reaction rates. In this case, the hot water means the citric acid reacts faster with the limescale. You might even see or hear fizzing in the toilet bowl when you add the citric acid. This is a sign of the citric acid reacting with the alkaline limescale.

If you don’t hear or see any fizzing, then don’t worry. This is not a sign that the citric acid is not working. It may just mean that the citric acid is reacting a little more slowly with the limescale. The limescale will still come off after a good soaking or two.

And for the science part, limescale is otherwise known as calcium carbonate. When calcium carbonate reacts with citric acid, it breaks down to form calcium citrate. This is a soluble salt that is easy to wash away. No sandpapering or chiseling required!

What Is Citric Acid Exactly?

Citric acid comes in the form of a white crystalline powder. It’s a naturally occurring acid that is particularly found in lemons and limes. I wouldn’t recommend using lemon to clean limescale from your toilet, though. This is because citric acid is much more concentrated than lemon or lime juice.

In fact, lemons contain just 1.44 grams of citric acid per ounce of juice. You’d need to use A LOT of lemons to get the same cleaning power as a small amount of citric acid.

As a naturally occurring acid, citric acid contains no harsh chemical compounds or fumes that can be hazardous to your health or the environment. It is safe for use in natural cleaning applications. It is also readily biodegradable in waterways and elsewhere in the environment. Plus, citric acid is safe for use in septic tanks .

As well as in natural cleaning, citric acid is also commonly used in the food industry. It’s a common ingredient in both beer brewing and winemaking. It’s used as a preservative to increase the shelf life of pre-packaged foods. And it’s even used as a food additive to add natural flavour to certain foods.

More Green Cleaning Tips

Looking for more natural cleaning inspiration? I believe that natural cleaning products, such as citric acid, can be as effective, if not more effective, than commercial cleaning products:

• As such, I’ve got over 25 natural cleaning products to DIY and tons of advice on green cleaning.
• When it specifically comes to limescale, here are my top natural tips for getting rid of limescale from your taps.
• And here are my top tips for removing limescale from your shower head.

Your bathroom will be naturally gleaming in no time!