Bathroom Cleaning Products Haul: I Put These Cleaning Essentials to the Test

This Was Supposed to Be a Simple Shopping Haul

Welcome to My Bathroom Cleaning Test Series
What started as a few stubborn bathroom problems turned into a full series of real cleaning experiments, where I tested different methods myself and documented what worked, what surprised me and what I would actually try again. Keep reading to explore the series.

So, my very good friend—who also happens to be a blogger—recommended a few cleaning products for me and mentioned that he would love to see me write some posts about them.

Simple enough, right?

Buy the products. Use them. Take a few pictures. Write about whether they worked.

But you know me.

If I was going to write about cleaning products, I didn’t want to simply spray something onto an already-clean surface, wipe it twice and announce to the internet that it worked. Where is the fun in that? More importantly, what would I actually have learned?

So I decided to make things a little more interesting.

I purposely neglected cleaning my bathroom for a while.

Before anybody starts judging me, calm down. This was nowhere near the infamous experience of Tomoaki Hamatsu, better known as Nasubi. In 1998, the Japanese comedian was isolated and challenged to survive solely on prizes won through magazine sweepstakes. He sometimes went hungry and, incredibly, didn’t know his ordeal was being televised to millions. The experiment ultimately lasted roughly 15 months. Mine involved a bathroom, cleaning products and considerably more personal freedom.

The idea, however, came from a similar place of curiosity: what happens if I create the conditions for a real test instead of manufacturing an easy result?

I wanted something intriguing for me to experience and, hopefully, something worthwhile for you to read.

Building My Cleaning Arsenal

Once I’d committed myself to this slightly ridiculous idea, there was no point showing up to battle unprepared.

My shopping haul eventually included Dawn Platinum Powerwash, Lysol Power Bathroom Foamer, Lysol Disinfectant Spray, Dawn Platinum dishwashing liquid, Arm & Hammer baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, Pine-Sol, Tide Ultra Oxi Boost, fabric softener and what can only be described as a small army of colorful sponges.

Not everything was purchased specifically for the bathroom, of course. This was still a household shopping haul, and several products had other jobs waiting for them around my home.

But the bathroom would become the testing ground.

By this point, my little experiment had given me exactly what I wanted: real problems to solve. There was grime and staining on the face basin, rust around some of the fixtures, buildup on the faucet, marks on the painted walls and a toilet supply hose that had become so discolored that I genuinely wasn’t sure how much of it could be restored.

Looking at everything I’d bought, though, another problem became obvious.

I had plenty of cleaning products. I just didn’t necessarily know which ones should clean what.

And blindly mixing household chemicals seemed like an excellent way to turn a Home Hacks article into an entirely different kind of story.

So I didn’t.

Instead, I approached each problem individually, starting gently and only changing the method when necessary. That eventually resulted in another trip to the store for white vinegar because apparently my carefully assembled cleaning arsenal still wasn’t complete.

Typical.

Then the Experiment Started Working

This is where things became genuinely interesting.

I started documenting what I was doing—not just the finished results. I photographed the bathroom before cleaning, took pictures while trying the different methods and even recorded some video along the way.

The face basin started coming back.

The rust around the fixtures disappeared.

The faucet looked dramatically better.

And then there was the toilet supply hose.

What had looked like a heavily discolored hose gradually revealed its original white surface as I cleaned it. That was probably the moment when this stopped feeling like I was merely cleaning my bathroom and started feeling like the experiment had actually produced something worth sharing.

I had before, during and after evidence.

And because I hadn’t cleaned everything immediately before testing the products, the results weren’t being demonstrated against surfaces that barely needed cleaning in the first place.

Did I perhaps take this further than my friend expected when he casually suggested that I write about some cleaning products?

Almost certainly.

But that’s precisely why I’m glad I did it.

This shopping haul has now become the beginning of a series of practical Home Hacks where I’ll show you what I tried, what worked, what required a little more effort and what I learned along the way.

Because sometimes the best way to find out whether something works is simply to put it to work.

The products are bought. The experiment is underway. Now let’s see what these cleaning hacks can actually do.