Glass shower doors can feel modern and elegant, and unlike shower curtains, they don’t stick to your legs as you try to get clean. That said, they can also be a pain to keep clean, and you can’t just stop by your local store to pick up new ones when they get grimy.
Since dirty shower doors can make the whole bathroom look less clean—and swearing off showers is hardly an option—we’ve put together the ultimate guide on how to clean your shower glass doors.
Whether you’re looking to remove stubborn hard-water stains, soap scum, mildew, water spots, or the picture you drew in the steam a week ago, we’ll cover everything you need to know to make your glass shower doors look like they were installed yesterday.
And don’t fret: not only is cleaning your shower doors a beginner-level task, but you’ll get faster each time you do it.
What You’ll Need to Clean Your Shower Doors
To clean your shower doors, you’ll need just a few supplies handy. Here are the basics:
- Gloves
- Spray bottle or bowl
- Sponge or multi-purpose cleaning pad (a scouring pad will scratch glass doors)
- Squeegee or microfiber cloth
- Cleaner of choice (more on this below)
If your shower has a door track, you’ll also need:
- A toothbrush or a small handheld brush
- Old washcloths or paper towels
- Paint scraper (optional)
As for what glass shower cleaner to use, you can use a natural or chemical-based solution.
Chemical cleaners you buy at the store target different problems, from mildew and soap scum to calcium build-up and rust.
Even so, natural cleaners, like vinegar, can be just as effective while being better for your lungs, wallet, and the environment. Plus, they may be in your pantry right this minute.
To make a homemade shower glass cleaner, you will need distilled white vinegar or baking soda. Optional ingredients include:
- Liquid dish soap
- Lemon or lemon juice
- Grapefruit
- Hydrogen peroxide
- Rubbing alcohol
- Essential oil
Read on to pick the best natural glass cleaner for your shower—ingredient quantities, directions, and tips included.
How to Clean Shower Doors With Vinegar
Distilled white vinegar contains acetic acid, a natural cleaning agent capable of cutting through soap scum and other grime.
Important: If your shower contains natural stone, acidic cleaners could damage it. Never use vinegar or lemon juice on marble or granite. Instead, opt for the glass cleaner with baking soda below.
Ingredients
- ½ cup distilled white vinegar
- Liquid dish detergent (optional)
- Water (optional)
Directions
- Microwave the vinegar for 30 seconds and pour it into a spray bottle.
- Mist the shower doors, spraying extra on particularly dirty spots.
- Let the cleaner soak for five to 30 minutes, depending on how dirty the doors are.
- Scrub the shower doors with a sponge, and rinse with water.
- Dry the doors with a microfiber cloth.
You can also dilute the vinegar with warm water, but the stronger your solution is, the better it will work on tough stains. If you have adamant stains or the vinegar solution won’t cut through on its own, add liquid dish detergent to the mix.
How to Clean Glass Shower Doors With Lemon Juice
Lemons absorb bad smells, smell better than vinegar, and contain citric acid—an effective cleaning agent. Though not as strong as vinegar, lemon juice will work well for light jobs.
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons of lemon juice or 1 lemon
- 1 cup of water
- ¼ teaspoon of liquid dish detergent (optional)
- Baking soda (optional)
Directions
- Combine water and lemon juice in a spray bottle.
- Add dish detergent if needed to help the mixture to stick better to your shower doors.
- Mist the shower doors, spraying extra on dirtier spots.
- Let soak for five minutes before scrubbing and rinsing with water.
- Dry with a microfiber cloth.
Have fresh lemons and no spray bottle?
You can also cut a lemon in half, dip the newly exposed side in baking soda, and rub the lemon directly on your glass door. The lemon and baking soda will create a frothy foam that cleans your glass shower doors.
How to Clean Shower Doors With a Grapefruit
Like lemons, grapefruits contain citric acid and antibacterial properties capable of cleaning your shower doors, minus the strong scent of chemical cleaners.
Ingredients
- 1 grapefruit
- Salt
Directions
- Cut the grapefruit in half, and dip the cut end into salt.
- Rub the grapefruit half on your shower door, giving dirtier areas more attention.
- Let the solution sit for 10 minutes before rinsing thoroughly.
- If needed, repeat with the other half of the grapefruit.
- Dry the shower doors with a microfiber cloth.
How to Clean a Shower Door With Baking Soda
Baking soda is a natural deodorizer and mild abrasive that’s great for cleaning, safe to use on your shower doors, and a pantry staple.
Ingredients
- ½ cup of baking soda
- 2 tablespoons of warm water
Directions
- Add baking soda to a bowl.
- Slowly add water until you reach a thick paste-like consistency.
- Pre-wet your shower doors, and gently apply the paste mixture. Scrub a little harder on target spots.
- Let sit for 5 to 10 minutes before rinsing off thoroughly.
- Dry with a microfiber cloth.
How to Clean Shower Doors With Vinegar & Baking Soda
If baking soda and vinegar are such great household cleaners, why not combine them for a power-packed homemade cleaning solution? While many recommend you do just that, the chemistry would suggest otherwise.
Due to the low pH of vinegar (an acid) and high pH of baking soda (a base), when used together, the two neutralize each other, resulting in a less effective cleaning solution than if you used them individually.
For this reason, we suggest sticking with one of the homemade solutions above instead of cleaning glass shower doors with vinegar and baking soda combined.
How to Clean Shower Doors With Household Ammonia
Although ammonia occurs naturally in the environment, the chemical you use to clean your home is still a chemical.
And while ammonia is highly effective on water stains and a common ingredient in store-bought shower cleaners, we recommend using one of the above natural solutions if you can.
If you do choose to use household ammonia, be sure to carefully follow the instructions listed on the product.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon of household ammonia
- 4 cups of warm water
Directions
- Open the bathroom door and a bathroom window if you have one.
- Turn on the bathroom fan to improve ventilation.
- Combine the household ammonia and water in a spray bottle.
- Mist the shower doors. Let sit for five minutes.
- Scrub the glass doors with a non-abrasive sponge and rinse thoroughly.
- Dry with a microfiber cloth.
How to Clean Glass Shower Doors With Hard Water Stains
Hard water contains larger amounts of dissolved minerals than standard water but is fairly common. While hard water isn’t a health concern, it does result in hard water stains and limescale build-up on your shower and shower doors over time if not cleaned properly.
The longer hard water stains sit, the harder they are to remove, but that doesn’t make the task impossible.
Remove hard water stains with vinegar: Vinegar is particularly great at fighting mineral deposits, making the vinegar solution above your best all-natural cleaner for fighting hard water stains. Be sure to let the vinegar soak for the full 30 minutes if you have tough stains.
Bonus Tip: Need a bigger boost? Add lemon juice to the vinegar solution for a stronger kick.
How to Clean Soap Scum on Shower Doors
Soap scum forms when the minerals in your water come into contact with bar soap. Sure enough, the higher mineral content in hard water can worsen the situation, but anyone and everyone will get soap scum over enough time.
To remove soap scum, the above vinegar, baking soda, and lemon juice solutions will all work. For tough cases of build-up, vinegar or baking soda will perform better than lemon juice.
How to Clean Sliding Shower Doors
If you have sliding shower doors that overlap, you know all too well how easily the overlapping area can trap water, bacteria, and soap scum. And for some glass sliding doors, there’s an area that’s impossible to access, whether you push the door all the way open or closed.
The easiest way to clean between these glass shower doors? Sponge paint brushes! If you haven’t seen a foam or sponge paint brush since you were a kid, they consist of a thin cut sponge on a stick—and come in sizes perfect for reaching that impossible space between doors.
When working with these tough to reach spaces, use a strong liquid cleaning solution of vinegar for an easier, more thorough cleaning. The more often you clean this part of your shower doors, the more you’ll prevent build-up that’s harder to undo.
How to Clean Treated Glass Shower Doors
A treated shower door does best with gentle cleaners and scrubbers. Opt for a vinegar solution and, if that’s not enough to cut through grime, add a drop of non-abrasive liquid hand or dish soap. Apply the cleansing solution with a soft sponge or microfiber cloth before rinsing and drying.
If you had a treatment applied to your glass shower doors recently, refer to the manufacturer’s website for the optimal care instructions for your treatment type.
How to Clean Tempered Glass Shower Doors
This is a bit of a trick question! Most shower doors are, in fact, tempered glass.
Tempered glass is simply glass that goes through a unique process of heating and cooling that makes it stronger. As a result, all of the cleaning solutions and tips in this article will work on tempered glass.
How to Clean Shower Door Tracks
Many shower doors have metal tracks running along the bottom. These tracks hold your glass doors in place and prevent water from escaping as you shower.
In other words, they are helpful but catch all the water and soap scum that slides down your doors. This makes shower door tracks a haven for grime.
Directions
- Plug any drain hole or slit in the track with a washcloth or paper towels.
- Fill the door track with white vinegar and let it soak long enough to break up the grime, anywhere from 10 minutes to overnight.
- Soak up the vinegar with another rag or paper towel, and unplug the drain holes.
- Use an old toothbrush or a small handheld brush to scrub the door track and loosen any dirt and grime. A paint scraper can help with tough spots, but be careful not to scratch your glass doors.
- Wipe the loosened dirt out of the track with a rag.
- Rinse with water, and dry with a microfiber towel to finish up.
Other Hacks and Tips for Cleaning Glass Shower Doors
As long as you follow the steps above in this guide for your respective cleaning solution, you and your shower doors are in the clear. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have extra glass shower door cleaning hacks to make your experience better:
- Work from top to bottom: The dirtiest parts of your shower doors will be near the bottom, where water and dirt collect. To make your job easier when scrubbing your doors clean, work from top to bottom to avoid pushing dirt onto cleaner surfaces.
- Scrub while in the tub: Don’t want to make a mess of yourself while cleaning your shower doors? Save time by wiping them down while you’re in the shower.
- Wash microfiber correctly: Microfiber is perfect for cleaning glass shower doors, and washing it correctly will ensure this stays the case. When washing your microfiber cloths, avoid fabric softener and always dry them on the lowest setting.
- Label homemade cleaners: If you don’t use your entire glass shower door cleaner this time around, label it so you know what’s in it for next time.
- Bust out a dryer sheet: A wet dryer sheet can help you cut through the scum on your glass shower door. If a regular sponge or cloth isn’t cutting it, give this trick a try.
Fact or Fiction: Does shaving cream prevent streaks?
A recent trend suggests cleaning your glass doors and mirrors with shaving cream to prevent streaks. The proposed method involves adding a large dollop of shaving cream to a rag and rubbing it across the surface until it naturally buffs away, leaving a streak-free surface.
While shaving cream can remove streaks—we know, it’s surprising—we don’t suggest it. Shaving cream is more expensive than homemade and chemical cleaners, and if globs of it fall in the process, it makes a mess too. It’s much easier to buff away streaks with a dry microfiber cloth.
How Often Should You Clean Your Shower Doors?
No one wants to admit it, but sometimes it’s easy to get used to our own mess. Why bother wiping the shower doors down when no one sees them, and you’d rather binge the next episode of your favorite show?
But, eventually, you will have guests over, and the panic sets in that you need to get scrubbing now.
A regular cleaning routine not only reduces the time it takes to clean your shower doors each time but allows for more time between deep cleans and prevents the panic before guests arrive or the overwhelming feeling when spring cleaning comes around.
And you’ll undoubtedly find that you prefer having pristine, shining glass doors. After all, you see them every day.
The Ideal Cleaning Schedule for Daily-Use Showers
For the shower(s) in your home that you or your family use every day, stick to the following cleaning schedule when you can.
Daily
- Hang a window squeegee in your shower, and after every shower or the last shower of the day, use it to wipe water and dirt off the door. A quick squeegee should only take a minute and prevent water spots on your shower doors.
- After each shower, leave the shower door open to air out.
- Turn the bathroom fan on before each shower, and leave it on for a while after.
Weekly
- Pick one of the above cleaning solutions and its corresponding steps to clean your shower doors more thoroughly.
Monthly
- To help repel water from your shower doors and keep your glass shower clean for longer, apply a glass water repellent. (This step is entirely optional.)
We understand that the frequency above may seem overkill, but it will prevent those hours spent scrubbing on your hands and knees—and that’s what makes cleaning dreadful.
You can clean any showers used infrequently, such as those in a guest bedroom, less often. Just keep an eye out for soap scum and streaks.
Do You Have to Squeegee Glass Shower Doors?
It’s not required to squeegee your glass shower doors, but it is beneficial. Squeegees are cheap, easy to use, save time cleaning, and allow you to clean less often. They also prevent stains and double in use to protect your shower floors from standing water and bacteria growth.
An alternative is to wipe your doors down with a dry microfiber cloth.
How to Keep Glass Shower Doors Clean for Longer
Want to stretch out your cleaning schedule and make that extra sparkle longer-lasting? Use the following tips to keep your shower doors clean for longer.
- Keep a daily spray in your shower to mist the glass doors with after each shower. Here are a couple of home recipes for your DIY shower spray:
Hydrogen Peroxide and Rubbing Alcohol Spray
- ½ cup of hydrogen peroxide
- ½ cup of rubbing alcohol
- 1 teaspoon of liquid dish soap
- Fill the spray bottle the rest of the way with water
Vinegar Spray
- 1 cup of water
- ½ cup of vinegar
- A little dish soap
- 10-20 drops of your favorite essential oil (for a pleasant scent)
- Slow the build-up in your door tracks by drying the water that collects daily with a rag or paper towel.
- Opt for a liquid body wash. The ingredients in bar soap are more likely to contribute to soap scum.
- Install a water softener to reduce the mineral levels in your water and reduce stains.
Make Those Glass Shower Doors Sparkle
You know everything you need to know, so what are you waiting for? Pick your glass cleaner of choice and get going. You’ll finish before you know it.
And moving forward, remember that consistency is the key to making cleaning easy. Whether you opt for natural or chemical glass cleaners for your shower, a regular routine will prevent build-up so that the next time you wipe your doors down, it takes minutes.
Set a phone reminder now to commit and take it off your mind. Then turn on your favorite playlist for this go-around.