Your bathroom can either be the closest thing to a spa or a sewage facility depending on how you maintain it. It is obvious that you should keep your bathroom clean to avoid bathroom smells or undesirable odor. However, this is not the only reason why you should clean your restroom. A clean restroom prevents the spread of bacteria and disease in your house.
One of the signs that a bathroom is well-maintained is its good fragrance. And when it comes to fragrance, most people rely on air fresheners, dehumidifiers, and moisture absorbers. Some even spend a huge amount of money just to keep their bathroom smelling fresh. What they don’t know is the fact that there are cheaper alternatives for this problem.
Here are some ideas you can use for your bathroom.
Add detergent to your toilet tank
If your toilet has a flush, the best way of making it smell good is through adding detergent to the water used for flushing. This way, the scent from the detergent will linger for a long time in the bathroom after every flush. When choosing a detergent, one with the smell of lavender works best on bathrooms.
If your toilet does not have a flush, the best alternative you can do is flushing the toilet using the water you used for laundry. This has almost the same effect as flushing with a detergent because it has the same components. This method is also a great way of saving water making this tip not just natural, but also environmentally friendly.
Keep your towels and rugs dry
Why do Filipinos hang and dry clothes outside of the house? Exactly, because we don’t want them to smell bad. Many people just leave their towel hanging after usage. This will make the towel and bathroom have a bad odor, especially if your bathroom is a very humid room.
The best way to resolve this is by drying your towel for a few minutes before storing it in the bathroom. Unlike laundered clothes, bath towels do not need a whole day of drying because the moisture inside it is not as much as washed clothes. It is also advisable to wash your towels regularly to get rid of smells and dead skin cells from your body.
Use lemons
Lemons are a bathroom appliance’s best friend. You can use lemons to remove soap scums from tiles, clean glassware, and remove rust stains. You can use lemons to remove bad bathroom smells as well. There are two ways of using lemon in your bathroom and the first one is by leaving lemon slices close to areas in the bathroom with an awful smell.
Lemons are great in neutralizing odors and leaving some slices can surely help. The other way is by mixing ½ cup of lemon juice, 2 cups of hot water, and 1/8 cup of lemon juice. Put the mixture in a spray bottle and use this to spray on your bathroom appliances. This solution is best used after cleaning the bathroom.
Take care of the trash
Your garbage can also cause the bathroom smelling gruesome. Unlike the other trash cans at home, bathroom trash can be filled with volatile waste and toxic materials like used toilet paper and feminine pads which is why it is important to regularly dispose them. To prevent this, it is best if you dispose your trash twice a week and not wait for your trash can to fill.
You should also make sure that your bathroom trash can is covered with its lid at all times. And if you have the money, scented trash bags are always available online. They might be a little expensive than ordinary trash bags but they can surely reduce bad smells from your bathroom.
Ventilate your bathroom
Everyone knows that ventilating your bathroom is one of the keys in getting rid of smelly odors. The easiest way to ventilate your bathroom is through opening your door and windows to get rid of the polluted, warm, air and get it replaced by a cool, dry one. The biggest challenge perhaps comes to those who have no windows in their bathrooms.
If your bathroom does not have a window, the best way to ventilate is through having an exhaust fan. An exhaust fan regulates the moisture that is present in the bathroom. But if you do not have the money for exhaust fan installation, you can have leave the regular fan on while the doors are open. You should also manually wipe bathroom walls after showers.
Light a match then blow it
You can use this trick if ever you use the bathroom in someone else’s house and you don’t want them noticing the horrible bowel smells. What you simply need to do here is light a match and blow it out after a few seconds. Lighting a match removes the smell from sulfur by creating a phosphorus ignition.
Of course, you can do this on your house as well if ever you have to sit in the toilet for a long time. Unlike spraying air fresheners, the smoke from the match does not cover the smell, it completely removes it. Some people say this works on tissue paper as well but for a safer execution, lighting a match will do.
Use activated charcoal
You probably asked your parents why there is a chunk of charcoal inside your refrigerator. This might be weird and annoying but it turns out, charcoal is an effective deodorized especially when it’s activated. Just like lemon, activated charcoal is also a great odor absorber as it is more porous than ordinary charcoal.
All you need to do is place a small cup of activated charcoal powder in your bathroom to get rid of unnecessary bathroom smells. However, you should replace this every week because the odor can hold onto the powder after absorbing smells. If you want another option, you can use baking soda instead.
Clean your bathroom
You should also take into consideration that removing the bad smell is different from making the bathroom smell good. Before trying scented candles and fragrances, make sure that your bathroom has no awful odors because instead of making the bathroom clean, these fragrances might mix together causing a worse fragrance.
The best way to remove bad bathroom smells is through regular cleaning. Brushing it and using a bathroom cleaner every two to three weeks is a guarantee that your bathroom will smell great. Remember, a clean bathroom will always smell good.
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