The Vine: May 30, 2008
Sars,
I just stepped out of the shower, and I’m at the end of my soap-on-a-rope. About the shower, that is.
See, my husband, dog, and I live in a beautiful apartment in an 1887 “castle” which boasts a 5-foot-long claw foot tub. It’s simply scrumptious, and it’s now becoming a requirement for when we buy a house. It also has a shower head. You know, for showers. Trouble is, the wonderous showering has produced a nasty sort of mildew film on all of the shower
curtains.
Yes, curtainS. By necessity, we shower surrounded by 5 (yes, five) shower curtains. Two on each long side, just due to its length, and one more to cover the leaky patch in the back where two curtains meet and water dribbles onto the carpet (yes, carpet in a bathroom — a questionable decision, but still). So, encased in vinyl as we are, it’s super-nasty to see the film and growth of whatever that is on the curtains surround the shower-er.
Do you or your readers have creative solutions/products for us so we can circumvent this problem and stop feeling like we’re bathing in squalor? Are there shower curtains that are truly mildew-proof? Are there products that won’t leave me wheezing that I can use on the curtains? Does anyone else shower in such a set-up who would be able to offer advice?
Can’t use the curtains from the wedding registry for fear of mildew reprisal!
Dear Doing The ‘Dew,
I grew up in an old house and showered in just such a set-up for many years, and many’s the time I shrank away from a shower-curtain panel drifting furrily towards me on a third-floor draft.
First, let’s define some terms. Some people use the term “shower curtain” to cover any plastic or fabric with holes punched at the top which surrounds a showering area, but it’s important to distinguish between actual shower curtains and shower-curtain liners. A curtain liner is usually much more obviously plastic or vinyl and not stereotypically living-room-drapes-y; it’s the part you tuck into the bathtub, whereas a proper shower curtain, you can leave hanging outside so that everyone may get the full effect of the dolphins or posies or subway lines or whatever is printed on it.
You may already know this, in which case I apologize for talking to you like we’re in first-semester Home Ec, but you would be surprised at how many people don’t. Anyway: if you don’t have liners, consider getting them — or using only liners instead. The vinyl fumes are kind of crazy for the first few days, but the liners are far easier to clean without staining or damaging them, because that’s what they’re made for.
You have several options as far as that goes. You can try that “spray the shower every day” cleaner, which I have had little luck with in a soft-water city. You can put on your calendar every 4-6 weeks that you have to take the liners down and clean them, and here’s how you do that: run the tub full of warm water; add a cup of bleach (or your favorite environmentally correct cleanser); sponge the mildew off; rinse the liners and re-hang. It’s a somewhat splattery gig, so I used to do it naked, hit the ceiling above the tub with the same bleach solution (if you’re having mildew issues on the curtains, you should check the tub environs for it too), then shower afterwards. It sounds like a huge pain but it really only takes ten minutes from start to finish.
And even though it’s become kind of a shorthand for anal roommate behavior, it’s worth noting: when you’re done showering, close the curtains so they can dry better. If you have a window in the bathroom, leave it cracked in temperate weather; leave the door open other times, or get a tiny fan for when it’s a humid spell.
The other solution is to find a place, like a flea market, that offers liners for like a buck each, and just slap down a hundy and stock up for the year. When one liner gets grody, chuck it and hang a new one. I suspect it takes shower-curtain liners about ten thousand years to biodegrade, so you may not consider that a viable solution, but it’s an option.
To review: make sure you have liners up; make sure you’re doing everything you can to keep them dry after you shower or bathe; get some bleach or Method green-grass cleaner and scrub them with a sponge or Brillo pad once a month or so; live a happy life.
Readers? Anything I’ve forgotten?
Tags: Ask The Readers roommates
You can also throw the vinyl liners in the washing machine with a towel or two to get the gunk off. Feel free to add in some bleach too.
I just bought a new nylon liner to see if that works any better than the vinyl ones (and to be less stinky when I first put it up), but I haven’t put it up yet, so I have nothing to report.
We were having a similar problem in our shower, so we bought hotel style liners. They’re fabric (so they don’t get all the white streaks & slime), dry better, and are machine washable. We just take them down as needed, and wash, bleach, and dry them. I had only issue with them – because they’re fabric, the water soaks through to the actual shower curtain (but doesn’t make it down to puddle on the floor). Other than that, they’re awesome.
Ooh! Thanks for the helpful tips. I would always pop my shower *curtain* in the wash with the other whites, but I was never sure of how to clean the liner. I’d end up dabbing ineffectually at it with some baking soda on a cloth. Riiiight.
I would only like to add one more thing: it is great fun to clean the shower while naked.
We had the same type of awesome tub (best baths ever!) for a few years. I kept a spray-bottle full of a diluted bleach solution in the bathroom and once every few weeks would give the curtain liners a good spray down and just let it sit (windows open, if possible). This usually kept the mildew at bay and didn’t require taking the curtains down or any scrubbing on my part.
I’ve had this problem in the past and am now so thankful for glass shower doors, but that 5-foot tub sounds wonderful. Anyway, I agree with Sars on the shower liner thing, but would suggest getting fabric liners rather than vinyl. They don’t stink to high heaven AND you can just throw them in the washing machine when they start to get grungy. So much easier than scrubbing.
I’ve heard that hemp shower curtains are wonderful; you might try googling that and see if they would work for you. When I had shower curtains, I used to just bleach-spray them periodically, and toss upon moving.
bed bath & beyond carries a mildew-resistant liner that works really well, and is also very large so you probably won’t need as many as with regular liners.
Heh…I’ve done the naked shower clean too. We get the narst on the tub liner and my husband will periodically chuck them in the washer to clean them after doing a hanging sponge wipe down. Seems to work well. Then again, we only have the one curtain/liner combo so…
I’m a firm believer in closing the shower curtain after using the tub to keep the grode at bay. I’m basically a lazy cleaner so any thing I can do to prolong cleaning is golden. Closing the curtains will keep the mung at bay for quite a bit of time.
We also like to get the inside shower liners with those magnetic doodads in the lower corners soas to keep the liners put (and to keep the leading edge from folding in on itself and breeding disgusting ick).
I am deeply in love with the Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner. Get the mildew and gunk off your shower curtains as Sars directed, then use this after each shower. Presto! No more gunk, ever.
You can also use Magic Erasers to clean the liner, and I’m sure there’s another way, but I just do it when I’m actually showering. Works like a dream. Or magic.
We live in a lovely older house, whose primary bathroom is poorly ventilated. (Yick.) I go through quite a bit of Comet spray bleach gel, or whatever it’s called. It’s fantastic for getting that black and oddly pink guck off ceilings, tiles, grout and shower curtain liners, but I invariably spend the rest of that day and most of the next breathing with difficulty and sporting a ginormous headache. (The window, she was painted shut by the white-knuckle-drunk previous owners.) I also take down the curtain and liner and put them through the wash, and it helps to send the liner through the first five minutes or so of the dryer cycle (on low heat).
Those every-day-spray things have helped with my shower, but not the liner so much.
My roommate is very sensitive to bleach, so a good scrub with some baking soda and a brush helps. I’ve also heard that the classic “volcano” setup – a mix of baking soda and vinegar – really goes to town on soap scum, but I have yet to try this. Could be a fun bathroom experiement, I guess. The upshot is that you’d spend about one dollar on cleaning supplies that would also clean every other surface in your bathroom, AND no bleach. If that’s a thing for you.
I second the ‘hotel style’ fabric liners – when I was traveling last month I had an epiphany while showering at the hotel. It was all spotless and clean, and didn’t cling to my legs!
I think the fabric style ones are a little more breathable, which helps keep the mildew away and prevents those draft-ups. And you just wash and hang them right back up to dry.
I live in a quaint apartment with the same tub and shower settup. For me, two shower liners encircle the tub to create a complete closure (with the bottoms hanging in the tub at all times), with two fabric shower curtains hanging on the outside. One tip that I have found particularly helpful is to cut off the bottoms of the shower liners so that they rest inside the tub walls, but do not lay on the bottom of the tub floor (not even a little). The tub is deep enough that this is never hard to do. I’d say I cut about 6 inches of liner off the bottom, and the remaining liner still hangs a good 8 inches or so into the tub. Cutting the bottoms, for me, prevents the water from being trapped between the liner and tub wall or floor.
Also, I have had great success with the clear plastic liners that are sold as “mildew free.” I do spray them down with shower cleaner or bleach solution after each use just to be safe, but they generally last several years before they start to become discolored and bother me enough to replace them, and I have never seen mildew or black gunk on them ever. Replacing them both is only about $15, so I consider several years use pretty swell for the price.
I second the mildew resistant liners. I got mine at Target.
I like the heavy mildew-resistant vinyl ones myself. They do get some soap film spots on them but they don’t mildew and they don’t billow. I tried a nylon fabric no-curtain-needed type but it billowed like crazy so I had to replace it. I absolutely loathe being felt up by the shower curtain.
I’ve had the same vinyl shower curtain for almost ten years now. When it starts to get icky, I wash it by itself (or with some old dishtowels) in hot water with a little detergent, some bleach and 1/2 cup lemon juice (occasionally a dash of vinegar too) and it comes out all sparkly and clean and mildew free!
My gf kept buying new shower curtain liners when the one that was up got gross, but I had pretty good success with regular all-purpose spray-bottle bleach (regular bathroom cleaner wasn’t very effective for me). I doused the liner with it, let it sit for 20 minutes, and then rubbed it down with a rag. While naked, obviously.
The fabric liners are just about as cheap as the plastic ones and require no maintainence other than taking them down and throwing them in the washing machine every few weeks. Sometimes with bleach, sometimes just detergent. IMO, all the spraying & breathing of caustic chemicals is not ever necessary — just laundering. Get a couple pretty shower curtains (NOT PLASTIC) to hang down around the outside of the tub while the fabric liners stay inside.
I also love the Automatic Shower Cleaner, but it wouldn’t be worth it if you don’t have a tub surround that gets soap-scummy. It doesn’t kill mildew, just soap scum. Plus it does not smell delightful.
MrsHaley: Really, on the not-killing-mildew thing? It’s worked for me so far — I’ve had it about eight months, and so far no grunge. Now I am worried that there are invisible mildew spores all over my tub and curtain. (Also, word on the smell, but a little air freshener takes care of that.)
I currently have sliding glass doors, but my history with shower curtains is such that I framed this New Yorker piece for the bathroom (it hangs next to the glass doors): http://tinyurl.com/63uodo
That said, when I last had a shower curtain, I found that throwing the liner in the washing machine every couple weeks worked wonders, though that was when I had a washer/dryer in the pantry and didn’t have to schlep anything to a communal machine. One note: depending on the liner, it’s important to wash it on a gentle cycle as some of the thinner vinyl ones can tear in the wash otherwise.
If you have a backyard or other outdoor space, hanging them up in the sun for a bit will help kill any mildew.
My husband used to get rid of the curtain and buy a new one every time it started to grode up until I noticed what he was doing and was all “YIKES, dude, it’s called a sponge!” Every few weeks one or the other of us will do an in-shower scrub down of the curtain with some Greased Lightning (don’t know what’s in that, probably toxic) and a scrubby pad, rinse it down before getting out, and problem solved! Closing the curtains and trying to eliminate places where air can’t flow between curtains if you have multiple curtains would also be key, I think.
Get rid of the carpet. No matter how careful you are, the carpet is still going to get water in it because of steam from the shower, which contributes to mold and mildew. Also, install a bath fan if you don’t have one, and leave it on for several minutes after showering.
Yes, tossing them in the washing machine *totally* works. If they are moldy (I know- ew) as well as mildewy, it may take two cycles, but still- less time with me scrubing = good. Now I just need to figure out how to get ten year old mildew out of tub caulk. Three CLR scrubings haven’t had any impact. :( Why did the losers who lived here before me have to be such slobs? Ah, the joys of renting.
I used to just throw the liners in the wash with the hottest water & a cup of vinegar. Kills the mildew dead.
I hate that feeling when they sneak up on your calves & CLING to you! But I still envy you that tub! I grew up with those & I really miss them.
Get an EVA liner instead. It feels much softer (no more cringing when it brushes your legs), hangs nicer (no more permanent crease lines from the packaging), and doesn’t outgas (the releasing of chemicals that causes plastic odor — meaning, no smell and healthier).
I’m no green freak, but it’s the best choice I made in a long time. My EVA curtain is on its 18th month!
Another vote for the fabric liners. Hemp is probably the most ecologically correct, but it’s hard to find and high maintenance. The “hotel-style” ones are usually nylon or some similar polyester–they don’t give off hideous fumes like the vinyl, and you don’t need major chemicals to wash–just throw in the washing machine. Healthier, cheaper, more eco-friendly.
we’re a vinyl liner house ourselves, and closing the curtain certainly helps (our current bathroom has no windows or fans). I am also a LAZY LAZY lady who hates to clean, so I generally power through everything with Kaboom. As much as I hate cheesy Billy Mays, that stuff works wonders. I spray the tub, walls, shower curtain, etc. and let the foam sit there for a while – the longer the better for me. Go back an hour or so later and rinse and its gorgeous. My husband works with ink all day, so sometimes his hands look like a mechanic or something and the bottom of our tub (which is textured) gets black and ooky, so if Kaboom doesn’t get it with the rinse, I usually just wipe with a sponge. And we’ve had our vinyl liner for… I dunno, maybe 3 years? 4 years? And its withstood all the Kaboom cleanings just fine and has zero mold.
I third (fourth?) the mildew resistant liner curtain. I got mine at BB&B almost a year ago and it is still in PERFECT condition. (They come in white or clear(ish) – I prefer the clear(ish) one because it lets more light in).
I’ve always used the cheap liners from the store and I just throw them in the washing machine with some detergent whenever they start to get scuzzy. They always look brand new whenever they come out. Simple, easy and I’ve never had to do it more often than every two months.
I live in a 200 year old house with a similar tub, and purchased heavy-duty cotton “duck” shower curtains (liners, I guess). They’re longer, so I only have to use 3 to surround the tub, they dry fairly quickly if you spread them out after the shower, and if you get white ones, you can throw them in the wash with bleach once a month to clean them. And they don’t billow….
seconding the magic eraser – i just keep one in the shower and lightly scrub my liner ocne a week or so.
I like the heavy duty vinyl liners (the smooth kind – not those thin textured jobs, which will get icky almost immediately), and I do cut the bottoms off if the curtain rod isn’t high enough to keep them from puddling in the shower. I just toss them in the wash periodically with some detergent and a glug of white vinegar. Works like a charm. They will crinkle up with a cold rise, but they’ll relax once you hang them in a hot shower. Oh, and buying the kind of rings that you don’t have to unsnap makes this far less disagreeable.
I also wash my dishrags, which get super stinky quickly (I live in a humid area, so it’s hard to get them to dry completely), in a small load with a glug of white vinegar, and it totally gets the mildewy stink out. If I just wash with detergent, they still reek. So, perhaps spritzing the shower down with diluted vinegar would also help?
Had the exact same tub set-up — you don’t need 5 shower curtains! Just line the area right around the shower head (3 curtains, max) and leave the end open. Unless you’ve got massive water pressure, you’ll get very little wetness beyond your shower curtains, you’ll have fewer curtains = less munge, and everything dries better, too! As a side note, it also feels much more spacious.
Also, I emphatically vote for the fabric-type liners – they don’t seem to get as much mildew, don’t smell bad even at first, and you can just wash them. Good luck!
everywhere i live seems to have notoriously hard water. i used to just chuck the plastic liners when they’d start getting gross. my mom takes them down, puts ’em through the washer and will hang them out to dry in the summer, but i don’t know what she did in the winter with them (we live outside of boston).
now i just use the fabric hotel-style liners. i haven’t had a single problem with it; not even it soaking the outside shower curtain. the bottom of the liner is turning red-orange (it WAS white when i bought it), but we have a problem with rusty pipes. i totally recommend the hotel-style liners, but i think you’ve got to experiment with what works for you. with all the suggestions i scrolled through to leave this comment, you’ve got several options.
@Emily: “So, perhaps spritzing the shower down with diluted vinegar would also help?”
Yes! Although I use undiluted. Just fill a spray bottle with plain white vinegar and spritz the liner and any other area prone to mildew. You can also use it to clean existing mildew–spray on the vinegar, let it sit a little, then scrub off.
It’s a much, much greener option, as many of those cleaners that get rid of mildew are toxic to you and the water supply. (And I read that bleach only whitens the mildew, and thus makes it look as though it were gone, but that the bacteria or fungus or whatever that causes mildew to grow is still there, so it comes back quickly.)
Not sure about how it will work for liners, but the Method daily shower cleaner from Target does the trick for me. It’s presumably less toxic than some other brands, and, while it’s true that Colorado isn’t known for its humidity, it handles the mold and mildew I do get brilliantly. I just have to keep on top of it (daily does pretty much mean daily…)
@Julie: Bleach does, in fact, kill mold spores on non-porous surfaces. You are right about the toxic part of it, though as bleach is a corrosive chemical. (I’m a chemist and have done studies in vitro studies with bleach).
Also, what works well is a product called Bon Ami. It’s less corrosive and has no “chemical” smell.
Fabric, all the way.
We also had a bathroom with pathetic ventilation, and when I replaced the vinyl shower curtain and liner with pure cotton muslin all the mildew problems went away. additionally, I could leave them outside the tub, since unless they were absolutely soaked (I mean, aim-the-shower-head
straight-at-them-and-let-it run soaked, they never dripped on the floor–the fabric just kept absorbing the water.
Additionally, if you sew at all, it’s easy enough to make your own–hit the quilting department for plain unbleached muslin and make them as long or short as you want. Seam together as many widths as it takes to wrap around the tub, hem both long sides, and set grommets at whatever spacing you prefer.
The Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner has saved my sanity and my relationship.
Thank you all for your suggestions! It is I, the one with the problematic, yet oh-so-spacious tub. I think I’ll try the vinegar spray, since commercial post-shower sprays have not done much. Other options don’t seem like they work so well in my case.
It’s a lot of work to pull down 5 vinyl liners (yes, they’re all liners) when I’m 5′ tall and the curtain rod is barely reachable when I balance on the tub-edge. Otherwise, I’d really be into throwing them in the washing machine. They’re also — ready for this — staggered/overlapping, so the whole process of putting up is an ordeal.
Unfortunately, with a high-pressure sprayer (love!) and old-school piping, leaving any part of the tub open is not an option, nor are fabric liners, as tempting as they seem. I just know we’d end up with wet carpet. And we cannot install a fan nor rip up carpet as we are, sadly, renters. The landlords installed the carpet to cover up a grody tiled floor that would have been, according to the landlord, “prohibitively expensive” to retile.
Maybe we’ll take them down once in a while, throw ’em in the wash, and just deal with vinyl cling in the meanwhile (thanks for the New Yorker link, Rachael.)
@Julie- bleach is absolutely the best thing to kill bacteria and fungus. It’s one of the best disinfectants out there and it’s very hard for things to become resistant to it. Vinegar works okay, but it’s only a weak acid.
Stupid question, for the peanut gallery – where can you buy these hotel-style fabric liners? Is there a particular brand name to look for? Does the package actually say “hotel-style,” or is there some other way it’s worded that distinguishes them from normal liners?
I’m with Julie on this one. Get yourself a gallon of cheap vinegar (white won’t leave spots as heinous as cider vinegar, but I think cider vinegar smells better) and a spritzbottle and just spritz down your shower and curtains after you shower. I would suggest, however, that you wait until everything cools down a little, or that particular wing of the castle will start smelling like a pickle factory. If you do get a strong pickle smell, it will go away. Open a window, run a fan.
Huffing vinegar fumes, by the by, is a great way to clear your sinuses and loosen chest congestion, if you don’t mind hacking your brains out and feeling like all your inner surfaces have been scrubbed with acid. which they have.
I have a similar setup. Ended up getting PEVA (supposedly healthier and definitely not stinky fume-y like PVC) shower curtain liners made by Ikea. Bought a pile of ’em on ebay for a couple bucks apiece. I just use the liners, and super-glue the spots that tend to fly apart, so it’s more like one big curtain.
Most of them stay mildew-free, but the ones that don’t (the ones that get wettest) I wipe down with whatever natural cleaning product I’m trying at the moment… and eventually replace when they get too awful.
Also, I tagged this a while back. Seems like it might help. Haven’t tried it myself. http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/sf/cleaning/concrobium-mold-control-049710
Ditto on the fabric liners. I keep two white ones for each tub — two so that one can go up while the other is in the wash, and white so that I can bleach them. If I let them get really grimy, sometimes the stains don’t come out entirely, but it you stay on top of it (every few weeks or so), they’ll look almost good as new. The care instructions on the curtain say not to bleach them, but I’ve never seen any ill effect of bleaching them.
I used to use the vinyl ones but felt bad every time I’d end up throwing them away. The fabric liners are more expensive to start, but I think you’ll save in the long run.
@JR — Any ‘major retailer’ has them. They are often hard to distinguish from the vinyl ones — you have to read the package carefully (none of the ones I get actually say ‘hotel-style’). It will say ‘fabric’ or ‘nylon’ on it and they are usually only white and beige. Mine are never more than $5. Sometimes there is a window in the package where you can touch the material and if it feels ‘woven,’ it’s the right thing.
@Sara — My auto. shower cleaner doesn’t get the pinkish mildew (hi, hard water) off the bottom of my fabric liner — hence, the washing. But it does beat the black stuff, which I have not seen in months.
Cleaners like Greased Lightning and Kaboom do work really well, but they are super toxic and should be avoided especially if you’re bathing children where you’re using them. Even the residue is toxic. They usually bother people with respiratory issues too. Chlorine bleach is somewhat better, but still quite toxic. Distilled white vinegar and a magic eraser work equally as well (For real!) and won’t hurt anybody. Plus your bathroom smells like Easter eggs or salad dressing!!
I was so glad to see Sars’s explanation of how to correctly dry the shower after… a… shower. Curtains closed, window open = what my mom drilled into us kids growing up. And after years of whining about it when she reminded us to go back and open the window and close the curtain (“But Mo-o-o-om! It doesn’t make a difference!”) I grew up and had my own place, and once again realized that my Mom is always right.
And now I grit my teeth when roommates or boyfriend don’t do that, and the shower inevitably smells like a gym shoe. Nagging them is not an option as it was for my mom… *sigh*
Oxy-clean! We once had a mildew issue that *nothing* would clean: scrubbing, cleansers, even bleach would only push it back for a week before it came back with a vengeance. But one day I accidentally spilled some hydrogen peroxide on it and “whammo.” Oxy-clean is now my go-to for mildew.