The bathroom can be one of the ickiest places in our home. It’s something that is used by every person in the house, and now that a lot more of us are working and learning from home, it is being used a lot more often. So weekly cleanings are a minimum especially for high-volume areas like the sink, tub, and toilet.  But every now and then the bathroom needs a really good deep cleaning. 

Declutter

It is so easy to have so much stuff piled and packed in your bathroom. Hair products that didn't exactly get your hair poppin' like they promised, hotel lotions and shampoos, expired medications, old makeup, gifts from Bath and Body Works, hand creams, the list is endless and can be overwhelming. So the first step is to declutter.

1. Take everything out or off of drawers, closets, the shower,  the tub, cabinets, and off of the counters, and put them outside of the bathroom. We’re about to clean the mess out of this baby.
2. Sort. If there are items that you no longer need or wish to use, get rid of them responsibly. If most of the product is used and water-soluble, rinse the contents down the drain and recycle the container.  If the product is full of chemicals and is not water-soluble, throw it away in the garbage. If there are items that you don’t want that haven’t been used, then give them as a gift or make a care package for those in need. Your trash may be really valuable to someone else. 
3. Get rid of expired medications by finding a drug take back site. If there is not one near you, then put the medication in a little sandwich bag and fill the bag with something undesirable like spoiled food or dirt, and then throw it in the trash.  
4.  Get clear containers or baskets to store the remaining items. Use labels so that everything has  a place and everyone knows where specific items go.  Here are some different categories to label the containers:  hair products ( if you're like me then you may need 2 of these containers, maybe 3), skincare, meds, nails, shaving...you get the idea. 
5. Give yourself permission to get rid of things that no longer serve you or bring you joy. Trust me I know how hard it is to throw out or give away stuff that you spent your hard earned money on. But we both know that another year of just sitting in the back on your bathroom closet is only going to make you feel guilty. Be like Elsa from Frozen and let it go. 

 Counter and Sink

Your counters are clear of products so cleaning then should be quick and easy. 

1. Spray down all of the surfaces with a bathroom cleaner that is safe for your countertops.
2. Allow to sit.  
3. Place baking soda in sinks to break up grime. 
4. Scrub sink and counter.
5. Use a bathroom-specific small cleaning brush to clean behind the faucet, drain, and where the sink and countertop meet. 
6. Wipe down with a high absorbent cloth.

Toilet

1. Spray from top to bottom with an all-purpose bathroom cleaner. (Don’t forget the lid and base of the toilet.) 
2. Apply toilet bowl cleaner.
3. Wipe down the toilet with a paper towel to avoid cross-contamination and for easy disposal. 
4. Scrub the hard-to-reach areas with a toilet -specific small cleaning brush. I’ll say it again for those in the back, a  toilet -specific small cleaning brush. That means that you have two separate cleaning brushes in your bathroom. One for all the other areas like the sink, tub, and shower, and one specifically for the toilet.  Be sure to label them. Again, this prevents cross-contamination. 
5. Clean toilet bowl with a toilet brush.
6. Spray the floor around the toilet with an enzyme cleaner to remove urine odors. Sometimes everything doesn't quite make it to the toilet. 

Shower and Bathtub

1. Spray tub or shower with shower cleaner. This shower cleaner is an easy DIY that gets your tiles and bathtub clean and sparkling without all of the extra chemicals. 
2. Wipe with a non-scratch sponge. Really scrub down the areas where there is a lot of build-up.
3. Rinse off, and buff dry if you want to be fancy. 

Glass Shower and Mirrors

Vinegar works really well to break up grime and soap scum on glass and mirrors.

1. Pour white distilled vinegar in a spray bottle.
2. Saturate mirror and glass shower with vinegar. 
3. Wipe down with an absorbent cloth for a streak-free finish. 
4. Rinse the glass shower with water and wipe clean.

Floor

The bathroom floor can get pretty messy really quickly. Hair likes to clump up and linger in corners. There can even be crumbs on the bathroom floor ( if your kids wash up after dinner, there is usually a trail of crumbs leading right to the bathroom).

1. Sweep up the hair and crumbs. To be honest, I never use a broom or vacuum, an absorbent cloth does such a better job of getting up all of the hair and dust.
2. Spray the floor with an all purpose cleaner and mop clean. Again, I use an absorbent cloth. The bathroom is such a small room, it is so much easier to clean with a cloth then to use an entire mop. 

Great job! Doesn’t it feel so good to have a sparkling clean bathroom? The last step is to put everything back in the clean space.