Woman Demonstrates Quick Trick For Cleaning Behind The Toilet: 'This Is A Great Tip!'

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Is there anything worse than cleaning a toilet? It's one kind of torture to run a brush inside the rim of a filthy bowl, but it's even worse when you have to clean an accumulation of hair, dust, and grime around the base. (Ask me how I know.) If you're using a sponge or a rag, it always comes out filthy, and you have yet another thing you need to clean and sanitize after finishing the task. You can imagine my joy, then, at learning about a new method for cleaning behind the toilet that's so brilliant — and dare I say, so obvious — that you'll be quick to steal the idea for yourself. 

"So I learned this, like, many, many moons ago, and trust me when I tell you that once you do it this way, you'll never go back," TikToker user @pairswellwithwhine said as she used a simple paper napkin to wipe dust, dirt, grime, and, well, you know, off the base of her toilet. Her followers loved this idea, too. "This is a great tip!" one said, while another added: "I always use paper towels to clean the toilet and the floor!" And if you're wondering why you've been using a sponge or microfiber cloth all this time, I'm right there with you. Although they are single use, napkins are one of the few paper products that can be disposable and relatively environmentally friendly at the same time. Plus, they're ridiculously cheap. The ones in the Amazon Basics Everyday Paper Napkin 400 Pack cost just a penny each, so it's no surprise that @pairswellwithwhine's comment section was full of love for this quick trick.

Even if you're as obsessed with watching CleanTok videos as I am, cleaning the bathroom still stinks. Since most of us are fighting a constant battle trying to keep bathrooms hygienic, swapping reusable cloths for disposable ones just makes sense. You likely use those microfiber cloths to clean other parts of the bathroom, like the counters or bathtub rim, so you don't want to reuse them in those areas. Even if you wash them in hot water in the washing machine, they won't be fully sanitized. (After all, that's why you have to dunk a freshly-laundered mop head into a solution of water and bleach: to disinfect it.)

To make sure her bathroom is germ-free, @pairswellwithwhine goes one step further, spraying around the toilet base with Pine-Sol Multi-Purpose Cleaner. This does more than make a bathroom smell like a walk in the woods: When used at full strength, the disinfectant also kills most germs and household bacteria. After a few minutes, armed with a few paper napkins, she simply wiped up the mess and tossed it all right in the trash.

Before trying this trick myself (spoiler alert: I am, indeed, never going back), I saw several comments saying that Swiffer cloths, paper towels, or even toilet paper would do the trick. The cheapest store-brand floor cloths I could find cost $0.20 each, so I ruled those out right away ... and I'm stingy when it comes to paper towels, too. But I did give a handful of toilet paper a try. Unfortunately, even the plush stuff turned into a soggy mess. For me, paper napkins are the clear winner for making short work of this unpleasant task.