Do Dryer Sheets REALLY blast soap scum?

As a mother of 3, I am always looking for ways to get a handle on those irritating little chores. One of them has to be, scrubbing out the bath tub!!! It annoys me. I always end up sweaty and my knees hurt from kneeling on them while I scrub the bejeebus out it. So, if anything can help make that a little easier on me, I am all for it.

 I actually share a bathroom with my daughters. Jason has his own bathroom. He has his own bathroom for a few reasons. One of those reasons is because there isn't enough counter space for all of my "junk", as he likes to put it. And the other reason is because he's just terribly messy when it comes to his bathroom.  You'd never guess it by how well he keeps up other things in the house. His toolbox for one... I bought him this pretty rad tool cart for his birthday a few years ago. He has a special spot for everything and don't you dare move one out of its place! He's very particular and protective over his tools. His dresser drawers are the same way. They are the neatest thing you've ever seen. All of his clothes are folded neatly and stacked in perfect little piles. It's actually quite cute, the way he has to fold his socks a certain way. Maybe it's just me, but I think it's adorable. But if  you walk into the bathroom, holy moly, it's like night and day! That is why I have decided to use his bathtub for this little experiment. I don't think he has cleaned it since we moved here, in September of last year. I am the only one who does it, and I haven't given it a proper scrub down in a couple months. I know....right??? I suck, but whatever, I have things to do, man! :)

So here is where our pin comes in. I found this little dandy on Pinterest.




Via Pinterest


The caption under the pin said : "Use a new dryer sheet to clean the bathtub. It melts away soap scum just like a magic eraser and leaves a wonderful smell behind".


Umm, who doesn't want soap scum to just melt away?  Well, I have my doubts. Call me cynical, but I KNOW soap scum. And I know it's not always easy to remove!  Especially when someone doesn't  clean it for 2 + months. Whomever that may be. I mean, who does that??

*hangs head in shame*

Okay...here is the damage

I am not proud, but hey, it could be worse. Right?

So before I get into all the details about if it worked or not. Let me tell you how I decided to tackle this pin.

First, I decided to clean the left side of the tub the way I always do. I use Clorox Bathroom Cleaner. It does its job. But, I still have to scrub the junk pretty hard.

Then I decided I was going to leave the middle untouched and clean the right side of the tub with the dryer sheet.

Jason is pretty faithful to his Bounce dryer sheets, and I use Downy Simple Pleasures in Lavendar Scent. I wasn't about to use my good smelling dryer sheets on this project.

Good thing I had an off brand that I had bought a few months back. Since, I rarely use them (don't like the smell), I figured this was a good way to use them up

I started by cleaning the left side, and then moved over to the right side with the dryer sheet.

. 

Here is the issue. I first tried to scrub it down when the tub was dry.  That was a pain in the neck. Nothing "melted". Figures! So, after about 5 minutes of trying to get the crud off, I added a little water. It started to come up a little better. I was hopeful. I still had to scrub it pretty hard. Especially in the spots where it was pretty well built up. I went through 5 dryer sheets just in the one side of the tub. They got pretty "filmy" feeling on my hands, and soaped up the tub quite a bit.

Here are the results.

While they did "work", I am not sure it wasn't just because I was scrubbing the heck out of it. It didn't "melt" any of the soap scum, like the post claimed. And actually, it left quite a bit.



Leftover soap scum

While it did work some, I don't think it is any better than my current method. And I had to scrub a lot harder to get it to that point. I don't think it's really worth the trouble. But that's just my opinion. Try it out for yourself and let me know how it works for you.


I rate this one:

Enjoy!

-Katie