Make Your Faucet Shine – With Vinegar!

 

Wouldn’t it be nice if everything in our houses stayed bright and shiny new forever?  But it’s a fact of life that as time goes by and we use things day in and day out, wear and tear will start to show.  That’s when a little homemade cleaning help can sure come in handy.

It’s been a couple years since I first wrote about getting rid of the mineral deposits on my showerhead and making it look all nice and shiny new again simply by using white vinegar.  It was a cheap and easy Make Your Own solution that worked like a charm. So when I started noticing there were some frustrating mineral deposits building up on the faucet of my bathroom sink, the first thing I thought of was – vinegar!

I was sure it would do the trick.

how to clean a showerhead with vinegar

But I also knew that for vinegar to do the trick, I would need to let it sit on the problem area for a little while just like I did with the showerhead.  For the showerhead, I put vinegar in a baggie and let it sit that way.

What, I wondered, would be the best way to do that with my faucet??

 

Paper Towels + Vinegar = Clean Faucet!

The simple solution turned out to be getting some paper towels very wet with vinegar and then laying them on the faucet.  There was one problem area in particular on the underside of my faucet where water easily puddles up and where it’s at a hard angle for me to clean, and that’s where the mineral deposits were.

And by the way – it’s really hard to get a picture of your faucet and not have your camera reflection show up in there . . .

How to remove mineral deposits on a faucet using vinegar

I laid some of the vinegar paper toweling on the problem spot I wanted to clean and was happy that it was very easy to lay it on there and have the toweling stay in place. In fact the wet vinegar-soaked paper toweling sticks to the faucet so well that I ended up laying the paper towel all over and covering most of the faucet.

What the heck – the shinier, the better!

Then came the part about being patient and letting the vinegar do its work.  Being patient is important and if you’re running low on patience you can do what I did.

Go run some errands.

After a few hours had gone by {and I was out of errands}, I took the paper toweling off and sure enough – the mineral deposits were gone and my old faucet was looking good again. Yay!

It also dawned on me that if I ever need to give the showerhead another mineral deposit removal treatment, this paper toweling method would probably work great there too – maybe even better than the baggie method!

Here’s how to do it:

How to remove mineral deposits on a faucet using vinegar

How To Remove Mineral Deposits From a Faucet With Vinegar

You Will Need:

  • Pieces of Paper Toweling

  • White Distilled Vinegar

The first step in this process is to get the paper toweling wet with vinegar.  I poured some vinegar in a bowl, and then quickly dipped a piece of paper toweling in and out to get it wet.

(The paper toweling I used was a select-a-size type of paper toweling that lets you rip off a piece in a smaller size and that smaller size worked good for this project too).

Once the paper toweling is wet with the vinegar, lay it on the faucet or around the faucet where you want some deep cleaning. Repeat with as many pieces of vinegar soaked paper toweling as needed for the areas of the faucet you want to clean.  The wet paper toweling should easily stick to the surface of the faucet and you should be able to mold it a bit as needed too.

How to remove mineral deposits on a faucet using vinegar

Let the vinegar-soaked paper toweling set on the faucet for at least an hour (or several hours is OK too).  After the time has passed, remove the paper toweling and throw it away.  Rinse the faucet with a cloth or sponge dampened with water, and then dry to a shine.

Hopefully after this treatment you will see good results like I did and your faucet will have a shiny new lease on life!

 
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5 Comments

  1. my dish rack collects lots of mineral especially the glass holder part maybe I will try this on it. thanks for the idea to use vinegar to clean

  2. Who knew? I often use vinegar to clean. Tried it on my kitchen sink and it worked! Thanks for the tip.