How to Clean Your Shower Curtain

Plastic shower curtain liners have a nasty tendency to collect mold, mildew, soap scum, and hard-water deposits, but a buildup of grime doesn’t necessarily mean you need to buy a new one.

You can actually clean plastic curtain liners in the washing machine, and while they tend to wrinkle after a wash cycle, this can drastically increase the lifespan of a plastic item. If you don’t have a washing machine, you can also hand-wash the liner in a tub (note that this requires a little extra elbow grease).

Be sure not to mix a cleaner that contains bleach with other cleaning products, especially acidic ones, like distilled white vinegar or Bar Keepers Friend. This can create a toxic gas that’s dangerous to inhale.

What you need:

How to clean a plastic liner in a machine:

1. If the liner has significant mold or mildew buildup, pretreat those spots by spraying on a cleaning solution that contains bleach, like Clorox Clean-Up Cleaner + Bleach, or a diluted bleach solution of 2 cups water to 2 teaspoons bleach. (We recommend wearing gloves.) Let the solution sit for about 10 minutes, and then wipe it off with a cloth.
2. Wash the liner on a cold, delicate cycle, with about 1 tablespoon of detergent. You could also toss a bath towel (one you don’t mind getting bleached) in with the liner, to balance the load and passively scrub the liner.
3. Hang the liner back on the shower curtain rod to dry.

How to hand-wash a plastic liner:

1. If the liner has significant mold or mildew buildup, put on some gloves and pretreat those spots with a cleaning solution that contains bleach, like Clorox Clean-Up Cleaner + Bleach or a diluted bleach solution of 2 cups water to 2 teaspoons bleach. Let the solution sit for about 10 minutes, and then wipe it off with a cloth.
2. To remove soap scum and hard-water deposits, fill a bucket or tub with enough cool water to cover the curtain, and add about a tablespoon of dish soap. Submerge the liner, and let it soak for about 30 minutes; then scrub both sides of the liner with a soft scrub brush, and rinse completely with water from the sink or shower head.
3. To prevent water spots from forming, you can wipe down the liner with a dry cleaning cloth, or just hang it back up on the curtain rod to dry.

This piece was edited by Katie Okamoto and Megan Beauchamp