Attitude Bathroom Mold/Mildew Cleaner : Green Clean

There are two ways to clean.   The smart way: on a regular basis, as in weekly.   Or the hard way: rarely.   Because I live alone and have an incredibly high tolerance to my own mess and dirt, I'm a hard way cleaner.   So, it takes me longer, I have to use a lot more elbow grease, and for 90 percent of the job I need the scrubby side of the sponge, if not a steel wool pad.  

I could just douse my bathroom with bleach - that would certainly burn through the soap scum, stains, mildew blotches, as well as kill a lot of germs.   But I would never do that because bleach is horrible for the environment and for me.   I'm highly, highly sensitive to chemicals, so I've been using natural cleaning methods as long as I've had my own place.   (Unfortunately for me, my neighbor down the hall does douse her apartment with bleach every week, and the toxic cloud of fumes wafts into my apartment and makes me sick.   She's also a big fan of chemically laced air sprays. Ugh. Now her cleaning days have become my "take my laptop to the coffee shop" days.)

Anyway, back to my bathroom. I keep my toilet clean because I sometimes have guests and because I'm not totally gross.   But I've always just given the tub and tiles a cursory wipe with super diluted Lysol or Pine-Sol (while wearing a HEPA filter mask--not kidding).   So there's a thick, embedded layer of crud that may get disinfected on the surface every couple of months, but never removed.   Today, I finally decided to do something about my dull, fuzzy tiles.   Armed with Attitude's Bathroom Mold & Mildew cleaner and a scrubby sponge, I attacked the tiles with a frenzy.  

The first thing I noticed about the Attitude cleaner was that a little squirt goes a long way.   I had mistakenly assumed that a chorine-free, glycol-free, dye-free biodegradable cleaning product made out of water, essential oils of tea tree and lime, and mild plant-derived cleaners might be sort of weak.   I was wrong.   I only needed about four or five squirts to cover the three tiled walls.   Thankfully, just the scrubby sponge was all I needed to free the tiles from their suffocating scum.   Then, and this is key with Attitude products - I rinsed.   And rinsed.   When I stood back in the doorway and viewed the tiles, they gleamed.   I had no idea I lived in an apartment with shiny tiles.   All this time I assumed they were matte-finished tiles.   (Or, that's my denial talking.)

The tub was a bit harder because I needed more scrubbing power and I was out of S.O.S. pads.   Still, in the end, I got a clean tub, gleaming tiles, a sparkling mirror, a shiny sink, and a disinfected toilet (essential oils, by the way, are naturally antibacterial and anti fungal, etc.)

Now, for those dark patches in the caulking (is that mold or mildew) - they're still there.   I think once it settles into the caulking, you have to recaulk.   A toothbrush helped me remove dark stains in the grout.  

Eco Creds: Non-toxic, biodegradeable, eco certified by EcoLogo.

Bottom Line: A clean bathroom, and I didn't have to wear gloves or a mask.   The essential oils impart a very light scent that's barely detectable.   It's just a clean smell - not antiseptic.   And nothing I did to my bathroom leaves a harmful trace on the planet. I think I'll be giving out Attitude products for housewarming gifts this year. --E.D. (April 09)

Price: $4.99, $28.08 (for six bottles)  click to shop/purchase

Manufacturer's Site: www.cleanattitude.com

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