Shower Door Cleaning: Soap Scum and Hard Water Stains

Yes, if you use an all-purpose bathroom cleaner and a lot of elbow grease, you can rid your shower doors of soap scum, eventually.

Or you can use vinegar, which cuts through that film like a knife through warm talc combined with body oils in a steamy environment.

To remove the chalky streaks, dip a sponge in full-strength white vinegar. Coat the door, and keep applying as the vinegar dries. You want to keep the door covered in wet vinegar for at least 5 minutes. The film will melt away. If you have particularly stubborn soap scum, you can try applying boiling vinegar — very, very carefully.

Simply rinse off the vinegar with warm water. The vinegar smell will go away after a couple of showers.

Other options include orange-based cleaners, mineral-oil solutions and liquid-fabric-softener solutions.

Once the scum disappears, switch to liquid soap, which is lacking the talc that can lead to soap scum in the first place.

Soap scum may be unsightly, but it's not going to hurt you. Mildew, on the other hand, just might. It's that usually black (but sometimes pink or green) growth you might see around the edges of shower doors, where the glass meets the frame, and it's a fungus. It can cause illness, especially in people allergic to mold. And it's ugly.

"Mold" and "mildew" actually refer to the same growth. "Mold" is the fungus, and "mildew" is what you get when that fungus builds up.

Whatever you call it, you can get rid of it using a solution that includes either chlorine or hydrogen peroxide. Both will kill the mold. Just spray or wipe it on — you don't need to scrub. If you have a bigger mold problem, you might need to repeat the application a couple of times.

If, however, the mildew creeps behind the caulk, you may have to replace it. Once it gets back there (or into the grout anywhere else in the bathroom), it's very hard to remove.

To prevent mildew's return, leave the shower door open between uses so air can circulate, and consider using an anti-mildew spray after each shower.

"Hard water," the bane of so many existences, contains excess minerals that stick around after the water washes away. Those minerals can leave a caked-on mess in pipes and on water faucets, streaks in toilet bowls and "hard-water spots" on shower doors that are impossible to hide and seem futile to remove.

They're not, though. Vinegar will take care of those stains, too, but in this case try a diluted mixture — half vinegar and half water. Wipe it on like you would for the soap scum, leave it on for several minutes and then rinse. For water spots on the metal rim, a citrus oil (like lemon or orange) can work wonders.

And once you clear the spots, consider applying car wax to the shower doors. It will seal the surface so it's harder for the minerals to deposit there (and make it easier to remove if they do). Just make sure you don't wax the shower floor — you'll slip.

After you clean your shower doors of water spots, mildew or soap scum, the trick is to keep them that way. If you wipe the doors with a towel, keep them open for airflow, and spray on a shower cleaner after each shower, you'll find your weekly scrub-down to be a lot less time-consuming.