How To…Get Rid of Bleach Stains in the Bathroom

updated May 10, 2019
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
Post Image
(Image credit: Sarnia/Shutterstock)

Bleach stains…sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? Well, a few days ago, in an effort to unclog our drain, we followed the advice of one of our friends and poured bleach down the drain. And man, we learned our lesson: Don’t. Do. That. EVER! Even after we rinsed the tub, the next morning we found nasty bleach stains around the tub. After two hours of scrubbing to no avail, we went online to hunt for some kind of remedy…

After some research, we tested out a few solutions:

1. Barkeeper’s Friend. It took a bit of elbow grease, but this stuff managed to take off only some of the stains. We did notice that doing a quick once-over to our tiles actually cleaned the stubborn grout really easily.

2. Hydrogen Peroxide. After applying it to the stains, we waited about 5-10 minutes, and then came back to scrub. The stains came out easily, and it’s a lot less toxic than…

3. Naval Jelly. OK, so we didn’t try this one thanks to the power of hydrogen peroxide, but it came highly recommended. But after reading the cleaning process involving goggles, gloves, paintbrushes, and a minimum of four hours to ventilate, we opted to try things that were less…involved.

4. CLR. This is pretty hit-or-miss. We did try CLR: left it on for about 10 minutes, and then tried to scrub it out with a stiff-bristled brush. On less prominent stains, it did the trick after a LOT of scrubbing. However, when paired with…

5. Pumice Stone, it worked pretty well. Thanks to Jonathan who tried this trick awhile back with his toilet bowl, we decided to give this one a go. It worked pretty well, although our arm is still sore from scrubbing.

Anyone have other solutions that have worked for them?