So, you’ve tackled the bathroom this week, diligently wiping down the vanity, cleaning the toilet bowl, and dousing the shower in cleaning products. But, despite your best efforts, an unpleasant, musty smell lingers and clings to the walls. What gives? A bathroom deep cleaning is what’s needed to banish the odor and ick, and we have the perfect deep clean checklist to incorporate into your regular cleaning schedule. With it, you won’t have to worry about sacrificing too much extra time to get the deep clean your bathroom needs.
Weekly Cleanings vs. Deep Cleaning a Bathroom
Deep cleaning a bathroom is a much more involved process than your regular weekly cleanup. Weekly cleanings are all about maintaining the appearance of your bathroom, and removing the surface dirt and grime that builds up from use. This means, you likely concentrate on visible, flat surfaces, like the vanity, shelving, and the floor.
With a deep clean, every nook goes untouched. You put a lot more time, care, and attention to detail in, as you wipe out behind the cabinets, wash inside the cupboards, scrub at the grout, and clean around the toilet base. These regular deep cleanings sanitize and disinfect every surface, removing the germs and bacteria that harbor those icky smells.
But deep cleanings like these can take time, and depend on factors like the size of the bathroom, how many people use it, and how often you maintain it. So, how do we cut back on this time? With a deep clean checklist that can be split up into sections throughout the week.
A 13-Step Effortless Checklist – Diving into a Bathroom Deep Cleaning Routine
Are you in a household where random items appear on every flat surface, regardless if they’re meant to be there or not? If so, the first step is to declutter before grabbing your cleaning supplies. Remove any items that don’t belong in the bathroom.
1. Grab Your Deep Cleaning Kit!
If you don’t already have a deep cleaning kit, don’t sweat it. Here are the items you’ll need!
- A Microfiber Cloth/Duster/Mop: this is great for picking up dust and light debris on those hard-to-reach shelves or tight spaces.
- Vacuum Cleaner: do you have a vacuum cleaner with an upholstery attachment? Consider using it in the bathroom! It’s great for getting into the tight corners around the toilet and vanity. Another option is to use canned air to push the dirt out into a more accessible area.
- Bristle Brush: you’ll want a soft-bristled brush for your grout. Optional, you can use a paintbrush for more narrow spaces.
- Toilet Bowl Brush & Cleaner: you’ll need any standard toilet bowl brush, and toilet bowl cleaner.
- Non-Abrasive Sponges: while you can use any ol’ scrubber sponge for soap scum buildup, we recommend these non-abrasive pads as they won’t tarnish any finishes on your hard surfaces.
- Bathroom/Shower Cleaner: for bathroom and shower cleaner, we recommend R.O.G.3 Ultimate Bathtub and Shower Cleaning Kit, as it’s SO easy to use and gives an effortless clean.
- Glass Cleaner: if you have a glass shower or glass shower doors, you’ll want a multi-surface cleaner or glass-specific cleaner for it.
- An Empty Laundry Basket: you’ll need this for step 2 below!
3-minutes to grab everything, especially if you keep it stored in one place.
2. Remove All Product Items from Your Bathroom.
This next step shouldn’t take longer than 3-5-minutes. Remove all items/products from your bathroom, including everything from your medicine cabinet, drawers, cupboards, and shelves. Put everything into an empty laundry basket and move this to another room for temporary holding. If you have pets or small children, make sure to put this laundry basket out of reach.
3. Remove All Soft Linens from Your Bathroom.
This is another removal step, where you’ll take all towels, bath mats, window coverings, face cloths, plastic shower curtains, and place them in the wash. If you’re looking for a great way to make your towels super soft and absorbent, throw in ½ cup of baking soda with your laundry detergent.
4. Say Goodbye to Dust!
Both your towels and your toilet paper will circulate dust and lint throughout the bathroom. The most common place for it to go is in your exhaust fan, but it can also build up on your lighting, flat surfaces, windows, and the floor.
- Exhaust Fan: between the moisture from showering, and the dust, dirt, and debris build up, cleaning the exhaust fan is a must. To do this, remove the fan vent cover and clean it in the sink. You may also want to take a small soft-bristled brush and clean the fan motor as well.
- Lighting: grab your microfiber duster and use this to brush away the dirt, lint, and dust from your light fixtures.
- Flat Surfaces: this step may take a bit longer than others in this list, as you’ll have to dust the ceiling, bathroom walls, mirror frames, and shower head.
- Windows: for your windows, you’ll want to dust one side of the window coverings, then flip them to dust the other side. You may also want to open up the windows and vacuum or take a microfiber cloth to the tracks of the windows and the frame.
- Shelving/Cabinets: don’t forget about those high up places, and dust on top of your cabinets and shelving.
- Floor: vacuum the floors to scoop up any dust, lint, or debris that has fallen during the cleaning process.
5. Grab Your Bathroom & Shower Cleaners Next.
In this step, I like to use the R.O.G.3 Ultimate Bathtub and Shower Cleaning Kit for the bathtub, and shower walls. What I will do is apply the blue liquid to the shower and tub, and let it sit for 10-minutes.
While it sits, I will apply toilet bowl cleaner to the bowl and let it sit. We will come back to the cleaning step later on in this checklist. Once this is done, I will use the multi-surface cleaner that I have, and get to work on the glass doors, door tracks, faucets, and any fixtures in the bathroom. You can also use it on your shelving, outside your drawers, and on your medicine cabinet.
6. Deep Cleaning a Bathroom Involves Steam!
While your cleaners are still soaking on everything, it’s time to get the bathroom nice and steamy. Turn on the shower and let it run hot for approximately 10-minutes or so, to allow the cleaner to really penetrate the grime.
- Consider turning your electricity breakers off at this point so that everything powered by electricity can cool right down.
7. Attention to Detail: Outlets, Switches, and Fans.
After the 10-minutes is up from letting your bathroom steam up, turn the hot water off. Spend the next 3-5-minutes cleaning your outlets, switches, and fans with a microfiber cloth. Make sure to get into the crevices beside your light switches, and use canned air on your outlets (if you’ve turned off the electricity).
8. Now It’s Time for the Big Clean Your Shower & Tub.
If you use the R.O.G. 3 Blue Liquid Formula, you can now spend a little bit of time scrubbing at it with a non-abrasive pad. If you had any limescale, soap scum, or hard-water build up, the formula is going to rip right through it, and it should be pretty effortless to scrub away any grime across your faucets, shower head, faucet handles, shower walls, and tub.
After scrubbing for a few minutes, I will rinse out the entire shower and tub, and then apply the R.O.G. 3 white cream liquid to create a protective barrier across the shower walls and bathtub. During this step, I will let it sit for 5-10-minutes, and then scrub it for a bit as well and rinse. If you’re not using R.O.G. 3 (you should be – it’s so effortless), simply rinse everything down.
9. Clean Your Windows & Blinds Fully.
Take your multi-purpose cleaner and spend a bit of time on your Window blinds and tracks. You’ll want to use a microfiber cloth for this part, and perhaps some canned air or the vacuum to remove any excess gunk in the tracks.
10. Replace Your Light Fixtures, Fan Covers, & Wash Your Sink.
If you haven’t put back your fan coverings, now is the time to wash, rinse, and dry them. Do the same with your lighting fixtures, and then put them back where they belong. From here, scrub, rinse, and dry your bathroom sink, faucet, and countertop.
11. Deep Clean Your Flat Surfaces Now with a Microfiber Mop.
From here, consider using a microfiber cloth/mop to wipe down your ceilings, and walls. Use a different microfiber cloth to wash/wipe down your countertops, mirror frame, vanity, and exterior/interior cabinet/drawer surfaces.
12. Do One Last Toilet Bowl Scrub & Flush.
Now turn your attention back to your toilet bowl and give it a good brush. If you have staining or build up on your toilet, you may need to use a pumice stick to clean it off. Once you’ve scrubbed the inside clean (don’t forget under the rim), flush and rinse. You’ll need to disinfect your toilet bowl brush afterward.
Don’t forget to get down near the base of the toilet, and in around the toilet lid bolts and coverings. You may want to use a small soft-bristled brush for this or a toothbrush. These places can hold hidden gunk and make your bathroom really smelly.
And make sure to wipe down the outer surface of the toilet. Water splashing up and out of the bowl can deposit a lot of nasty stuff right onto the sides of the toilet without you even knowing! Ick! Also, check out those water lines and wipe them down too – they’re a magnet for dust.
13. One Last Floor Wipe!
Now that every other surface in the bathroom has been dusted, soaked in cleaning products, and wiped down, it’s time to clean the floor fully. Begin in the farthest corner away from the door, and grab a mop with the cleaner of your choice. Give it a good wash down, and then let it air dry. If you have a lot of visible grouts on the floor, you may want to scrub the grout first with some hydrogen peroxide and baking soda mix.
Congratulations, you’ve made it to the bottom of the bathroom deep cleaning list, and now know what it truly means to deep clean your bathroom. While this list is comprehensive, it ensures that every nook in your bathroom gets cleaned, and these steps can be broken down and worked into your weekly cleaning schedule so that you don’t feel like you have to do it all at once.
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To complete this deep-cleaning process quickly yet effectively, we recommend using products like R.O.G.3’s Ultimate Bathtub & Shower Cleaners because they’re specially formulated to tackle dirt and grime with minimal effort! It’s as simple as spray on, let sit, then scrub a bit, and rinse. If you’d like to learn more about this, visit R.O.G. 3 today.