Limescale is unfortunately something of a common occurrence in my bathroom and kitchen with living in a hard water area.
It most commonly forms in the kettle, on taps, in toilets and of course on shower heads.
While completely harmless to humans, it can be unsightly and in my case has blocked the holes of the shower head and disrupted the water flow along the way.
Instead of reaching for chemical cleaning products to tackle that task, it is recommended to try household solutions first.
The white vinegar method is the commonly suggested home remedy but cleaning experts at Villeroy and Boch claim that it’s “time-consuming”.
Instead, they say to use citric acid as it “dissolves stubborn limescale” for “perfect results” – this certainly worked for me.
The experts stated: “Cleaning with baking soda or with vinegar is very gentle on the material, but is somewhat time-consuming. A quicker way is to use citric acid.”
Citric acid is a staple product in my cleaning cabinet, ever since using it for the first time on my limescale-ridden kettle and noticing instant results.
As citric acid is a strong natural cleaning agent, I made sure to spot-test the acid on an unnoticeable part of the head to check it wouldn’t damage the material and it didn’t. However, if it does, households may prefer to use the vinegar method to remove the limescale.
I made sure to move the shower head around in the water so that the acid could get to every part of it. It’s important to wear gloves at this time as citric acid is corrosive.
Citric acid is “considerably more aggressive than baking soda”, so the experts claim that 10 to 15 minutes should be plenty long enough to “completely decalcify the shower head”.
After the 10 minutes were up I gave the shower head a rinse and let enough water run through it to rinse out the acid left inside.
I was amazed to see that all the limescale had melted off even within the little holes without any scrubbing at all.
