How to Get Water Spots Off Of A Shower Door

No matter how many times you rinse down your glass after taking a shower, you're bound to have water spots on your shower door. Although you can rinse away any leftover soap suds with just water, water spots require something more acidic. You don't need to break the bank purchasing fancy cleaning products, though. Most likely, you'll have something right in your cabinet that will clean water spots.

According to the Pink Plumber, water spots are caused by hard water. Whenever you shower, minerals come out of that water, and the minerals cause white, scaly deposits called limescale. Garrety Glass notes that hard water also reacts to paraffin wax, a common ingredient in bar soap. When you wash with soap, the residue forms scum.

Soap scum can build on limescale, and that's what causes water spots. Although you can't really change hard water, because hard water depends on where you live, you can clean up the hard water stains with a couple of household ingredients.

According to the Pink Plumber, limescale is an alkaline substance, so regular commercial cleaners don't always work to penetrate or break up the hard water. To clean up hard water, you can use ingredients like vinegar, baking soda or lemon juice.

Vinegar works well to get rid of water spots because the acid breaks down the alkaline substance. All you have to do is combine equal parts of warm white vinegar and liquid dish soap in a spray bottle. Spray the mixture on your door and wipe off the solution with a soft cloth or sponge.

The soap will cut through any grease or grime, and the vinegar will wash away the water spots. Although this mixture is great for cleaning water spots, when you use it for the first time, test it in a small area to make sure it doesn't scratch your glass. If you decide to use this solution, Garrety Glass advises never using it at the same time as bleach to prevent noxious fumes.

Another useful cleaning product is baking soda. Just mix baking soda with water to create a thick paste. If you're cleaning a shower door, you can use about 1/2 cup of baking soda to clean the whole door. After you mix the baking soda paste, rub it on the shower door with a soft cloth and rinse the shower door off with vinegar.

If you want to skip this two-part process, you can also create a paste with just baking soda and vinegar. After you rub the paste on the glass, let it sit for 20 minutes before rinsing your shower door. If you don't like using vinegar, you can use lemon juice instead. It is a bit of a nuisance to use lemon juice because you have to juice three lemons, but lemon juice works great for getting hard water spots off glass.

Juice three lemons and mix the liquid with 1 cup of distilled water. Spray your shower down and wait five minutes before you wipe down the glass with a cloth. If you ever have leftover lemons from making tea or lemonade, dip a lemon half's cut side in baking soda. You can rub the lemon right on the glass, but make sure to rinse the glass with distilled water immediately after removing the water spots.