Ditch The Vinegar And Use This Unlikely Beverage To Clean Your Showerhead
Because the most obvious places we need to clean in our bathrooms usually require weekly attention, we might lose sight of the need to periodically cleanse the showerhead. The showerhead can quickly become covered in crusty, gross-looking limescale, formed by hard water. Hard water can cause problems throughout your home, but it's most visible in the bathroom where showerheads accumulate mineral deposits over time. Left undisturbed, limescale leaves unsightly clay-colored or white marks and can clog the pores, sending out a crooked spray and weakening the strength of the water flow. Although vinegar is often used as a cleaning agent for this hack, you can ditch it and clean your showerhead with a bottle of Coca-Cola instead.
If you want to do a quick clean-up, using Coke works quite effectively as a descaler. This is perfect if you happen to have run low on white vinegar or just don't have any in the kitchen. It's easy and takes the same amount of time as using vinegar.
How to use the Coca-Cola hack
Because of its phosphoric acid, which is a common ingredient in cleaning products, you can use Coca-Cola in surprising ways around the house. PH levels measure the acidity of fluids, and the scale runs from 0 (highly acidic) to 14 (base), with a pH of 7 being neutral. To give you an idea, lime juice and vinegar have a pH of 2, and classic Coca-Cola weighs in with a pH level of about 2.4. That's remarkably close to vinegar and perfect for a descaling project. What you'll need for this hack is a plastic freezer bag, rubber bands, and enough Coke to fill the bag and cover the showerhead. Optionally, to remove stubborn deposits, have a household cleaning toothbrush on hand.
Unscrew the showerhead, place it in the bag, cover it with Coke, and close the bag with rubber bands. If your showerhead is fixed, simply place your soda-filled freezer bag around the showerhead, secure it with multiple rubber bands around the pipe, and let it soak for an hour. Once it's done, use a toothbrush to loosen debris around the nozzle holes and the collar where it threads onto the pipe. Rinse the showerhead in the sink, reattach it, then run the shower for a few seconds to remove any leftover soda.