I Tried the Viral TikTok Shower-Cleaning Hack and It Didn't Work

If you’ve ever gotten lost in the world of cleaning TikTok then you know it’s a total rabbit hole… and it’s very likely you’ve come across Vanesa Amaro. As a professional housekeeper with 3.5M followers, the self-proclaimed Queen of Cleaning offers up some truly incredible tips. My faves are the ones that seem mind-blowingly easy or embarrassingly obvious. So, when she posted about a time-saving way to clean your shower that falls under both categories, I was all ears.

Referred to as “the best cleaning hack of your life,” Vanesa races through a fast-paced video that starts in a shopping aisle. Once back home, she grabs a soap-dispensing brush, fills it with dish soap and vinegar, and scrubs down her shower. It all happens in thirty seconds, and it gives the very effective impression that that’s how long it can now take you, too, to clean your shower. The "genius hack" part comes from storing the brush physically in the shower, pre-filled with her recommended cleaning solution. This way, you can scrub the tub while you’re waiting for your conditioner to set. But in the name of a test run, I decided to see if the vinegar + dish soap + soap-dispensing brush combo worked in the first place. 

Trying the TikTok Shower-Cleaning Hack

The first thing worth mentioning is that I live in London, where the water is shockingly hard. Upon moving here from the United States, I quickly learned that the limescale build-up requires some life adjustments I never knew existed. Have you ever heard of dishwasher salt? Because I hadn't, and that’s the kind of nonsense London water requires. London is also known for being a pretty damp city, so we’re more prone to mold and mildew than other places.

Basically, cleaning our bathroom requires more than just a little bit of elbow grease, and this environmental combo requires some heavy lifting in the cleaning department. Our shower gets a pretty decent weekly scrubbing with some nature-friendly products, but it requires a real deep clean about once a month. That’s when we often have to break out the not-so-eco-friendly stuff. It’s not ideal, but it is what it is. The most annoying days are the ones in between cleanings, where the limescale begins to build up and create unsightly spotting on our glass-front shower and the metal fixtures. 

Filling the Brush

While Vanesa suggests this hack as a weekly fix, I wondered if it would work for us for more regular maintenance. If a daily vinegar and dish soap scrub could help reduce the monthly deep cleans with harsher chemicals, then I was on board! So, I filled up my brush with dish soap (or washing up liquid as the Brits say) and topped it up with vinegar. Vanesa makes this part look easy because she’s a professional, but I managed to spill some on my hands and I smelled like a pickle for the next hour. 

Scrubbing and Rinsing

Because I wasn’t doing my test run while physically in the shower, I first soaked the walls and floors with the showerhead, and then I set to scrubbing. I will say that the cleaning combo made some extremely satisfying suds. After, I rinsed it all down the drain and waited for it to dry.

The Results

Unfortunately, once it dried, the shower didn’t look too different. A lot of the chalky marks on the floor stayed put, and our polished chrome fittings didn’t gleam the way they do when I attack them with glass cleaner. They actually just looked pretty much the same. The glass wall looked slightly better than before, but it was streaky instead of spotless. The biggest downside for me was that everything smelled like vinegar... and I’m just not sure that the time-saving trade-off of a quick shower scrub is worth sacrificing if the rest of my shower time smells like a salad bar.

Even so, I can’t say that this hack is a bad tip! I love the idea of keeping a cleaning item on hand for a quick shower clean, and I’d bet that in places where the water isn’t so hard, this might work really well. 

Either way, I’m glad I gave it a shot and I’ll continue to obsessively scroll through Vanesa’s feed, looking for the next cleaning hack that just might save my day.