Cleaning your toilet is important but unpleasant, so we can be less vigilant than we’d like to admit when it comes to household chores. If you dread opening your lid and being greeted with that funky smell, toilet bombs can be a fun way to take back control of your bathroom.
Why do People Use Toilet Bombs?
Toilet bombs are effervescent tablets designed to clean and deodorise your toilet bowl with ease. When dropped into the toilet, these fizzing tablets release cleansing agents and pleasant fragrances, leaving your bathroom smelling fresh and clean.
What Are DIY Toilet Bombs Made Of?
The key ingredients are baking soda, citric acid and essential oils:
Baking soda is a deodoriser and gentle abrasive, helping remove nasty smells from your toilet.
Citric acid helps kill bacteria in your toilet, and helps the baking soda react with the water in your toilet to clean it.
Essential oils provide the scent, and citrus-based oils can provide additional germ killing properties.
Why Would I Use Perfume Instead of Essential Oil?
Perfumes offer a wider and more complex range of scents compared to toilet blocks made with essential oils or bought in a store. Perfume also allows you to choose a scent with a greater sentimental value. It also allows you greater control over the ambiance of your bathroom to guests.
Why Would I Use Perfume Instead of Essential Oil?
Perfume evaporates more readily than essential oil, so your toilet cakes may not smell as strong when it comes time to use them.
Essential oils also lend additional germ-killing properties to your toilet bombs, which will be lost if you swap these out for perfume.
Perfume can contain both alcohol and essential oils, both of which are antimicrobial. However, the alcohol content will evaporate quickly. At a given volume your perfume’s oils exist in a lower quantity compared to essential oil, and may not contain the right oils.
You can mitigate these issues by simply adding more perfume to your toilet bombs, or using both perfume and essential oils. You should also store your perfume toilet bombs in an airtight container.
How to Make Your DIY Toilet Bombs
Ingredients:
- 1 cup baking soda
- (optional) pigment and/or glitter powder
- 1/2 cup citric acid
- Perfume of your choice
- Water (in a spray bottle)
- Silicone mould or ice cube tray
- Mixing bowl
- Spoon or spatula
Instructions:
1. In a mixing bowl, combine the baking soda, pigment/glitter powder (if used) and citric acid until well mixed. If using pigment or glitter powder, start with a small amount and mix to the desired visual effect.
2. Add several drops of perfume to the dry mixture. Start with a small amount and adjust according to your desired fragrance intensity.
3. Use the spray bottle to lightly mist the mixture with water, stirring continuously with the spoon or spatula. The mixture should hold together when squeezed without crumbling.
4. Quickly transfer the damp mixture into the silicone mould or ice cube tray, pressing down firmly to compact it.
5. Allow the toilet bombs to dry and harden in the mould for at least 24 hours, or until completely solid.
6. Once dry, carefully remove the toilet bombs from the mould and store them in an airtight container until ready for use.
How to Use and Store Your Scented Toilet Bombs
To use your scented toilet bombs, simply drop one bomb into the toilet bowl and let it fizz and dissolve. Allow the toilet bomb to work its magic for a few minutes, then scrub the bowl with a toilet brush and flush.
You can also place your toilet bombs in a toilet rim block holder. As you flush, the water dissolves your toilet bomb, deodorising the sides of the bowl and toilet water.
Store any unused toilet bombs in an airtight container to prevent them from absorbing moisture and losing their effectiveness.
Making and Storing Your Scented Cistern Blocks Safely
Carefully clean your spoon, spatula, and mixing bowl with soap and hot water before using them in future food prep and storage.
Kitchen utensils can be absorbent, particularly wooden and plastic ones, and perfume in your DIY cistern blocks aren’t safe for human consumption. Use silicone utensils wherever possible, or utensils you do not use with food.
While making your scented cistern blocks, make sure that pets and children do not touch or ingest your ingredients. Keep these blocks out of reach while hardening and store them in a secure container when done.
Creating Visual Effects with Your Toilet Bombs
If you used pigment or glitter powder to make your DIY scented toilet bombs, you can turn each flush into an artform for your household and guests. For example:
You can make your toilet cakes in layers or patches of colour for a rainbow effect when you flush.
You can use different single colour toilet blocks, arranged in one or more toilet block holders. Experiment to produce a striped, colour filter or gradient effect as you flush.
If you make one toilet block colour harder than the other, you can produce a gradual colour change with successive flushes.
You can use glitter powder to plain or coloured toilet bombs to create a shimmering effect as you flush.
To conserve water and protect the environment, please minimise flushing to when you actually need to use the bathroom.
Other Ways to Keep Your Toilet Fresh
Your DIY toilet cakes can help deodorise and clean your toilet but for the best fragrant effect (and least judgment from guests behind your back) your toilet should be regularly maintained. Easy ways to do this include:
Sitting down to pee
If you presently point to pee, keep in mind that there’ll be splashback even if your aim is true. This will find its way to your toilet rim and the underside of your seat at best, where urea (the stinky compound in pee) will collect with successive bathroom trips. As your toilet is used over time, you may notice a sharp, musty smell as you sit down or stand over the toilet bowl.
Sitting down to pee ensures that all your waste goes in the bowl, and that your pee flows into the bowl with less spatter than if you stood. This will reduce the smelly buildup of urea in your toilet, helping the noses of you and your guests stay focused on the fragrant toilet blocks you worked so hard to make.
Cleaning behind and under your toilet seat
Whether or not you sit down or standup, you can’t say the same for any guests who use your bathroom. For this reason, you should clean your toilet at least once a week with a bleach solution or bathroom cleaner.
If your toilet bowl or seat is stained, wipe the area with cream cleanser. For stubborn stains, leave the cream cleanser to soak for at least 10 minutes first.
Brushing or bleaching your toilet rim
The underside of the rim is where you see the flushing water coming from in most toilets. Your DIY toilet cakes won’t reach they’ll be set below the rim, with the water flowing down from above.
To keep this area clean, and avoid buildup of nasty smells, scrub this area with your toilet brush (soaked in bleach solution) at least once per week.
You can go further and spray pure bleach around the full rim of your bowl, leaving this to soak until your next flush. This has the added benefit of sterilising your bowl as well.
Cleaning your toilet brush and regularly change the water
When a toilet brush is returned to its holder, it transfers some of your toilet grime back into the holder.
For this reason, you should clean your toilet brush and holder at least once per month, replacing the water with a fresh bleach solution.
To clean your brush, you can simply stick your brush in your (clean) toilet to soak, adding more bleach to the toilet water.
Conclusion
With homemade scented toilet bombs, you can effortlessly keep your bathroom clean and fragrant. By using simple ingredients and following easy DIY steps, you can enjoy the benefits of these effervescent tablets while infusing your bathroom with delightful scents.
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