Once upon a time, I made a few huge batches of my regular sea salt bath fizzies and postpartum bath fizzies as gifts for friends who were expecting babies.
I kept a few of the ones that broke when I removed them from the molds and was planning to use them myself. I had them in a bag by my bathtub and my one year old got into them (in true one-year old fashion). She was going through a phase of putting everything in the toilet, and these were no exception.
My first reaction was to stifle my annoyance for yet another thing being thrown in the toilet, and then I was angry that I wouldn’t get to use the bath fizzies myself.
I didn’t want to flush the toilet until they finished fizzing since I wasn’t sure that would be good for the pipes. As I stood there watching them fizz and mourning the loss of my relaxing bath, I noticed that the toilet seemed to be getting cleaner as they fizzed.
I used the toilet brush to make sure they had all dissolved and when I flushed the toilet, I was shocked how clean it was. I realized that the bath fizzies had a lot of ingredients that were naturally detoxing, and that these ingredients also worked great for detoxing and cleaning toilettes.
I played with the recipe to make it a little more potent since it wouldn’t need to be gentle enough for skin. The result was an inexpensive, easy-to-make, highly effective toilet cleaning disk. The best part? The kids love using these because they are fun, so my toilets are getting cleaned three times per week or more.
These freshen the bathroom and leave the toilet sparkling. I store them in an air-tight glass jar in the bathroom and use them as needed. I’ve found that if stored correctly, they keep for months.
Natural Toilet Cleaning
If you are still using the “call the poison center if you eat, drink, inhale or look at this wrong” type cleaners, try these instead. All of the ingredients are food grade and can be used in cooking (though I definitely wouldn’t eat them because of the concentration of baking soda and citric acid).
Note: I haven’t tried flushing the toilet before this has fully dissolved, but I would not suggest trying it (I’m thinking that kind of pressure in pipes isn’t the best idea!)
Natural Toilet Cleaning Fizzies Recipe
Yield
Materials
- 2 cups baking soda
- ⅔ cup citric acid
- essential oils (I used 30 drops each of lemon and orange)
Instructions
- In a glass bowl, mix together the baking soda and citric acid in a glass bowl. I suggest wearing a mask and some latex gloves for this to protect your skin and eyes.
- Slowly mist the dry powder with water, mixing as you go. You want to barely wet the powder to get it to stick together in the mold. Literally, 1-2 sprays should be enough. Too much will cause fizzing.
- Add the essential oils and continue mixing.
- Using a ½ or 1 teaspoon measure, scoop out spoonfuls and place them on a piece of parchment paper until dry. You could also use a silicon mold for this step.
- Let the fizzies dry overnight and carefully place in an airtight container to use as needed.
Notes
More natural bath cleaning recipes here.
What do you use to clean your bathroom? Ever came up a recipe randomly like this?
Love this post. However, just thought I would bring to attention some error in the post in the instructions.
I believe you meant to write mix instead of mist in the beginning and I believe it is supposed to be powder not power.
Anyway, this is what is showing on my screen. Take care!
2. Slowly mist the dry power with water, mixing as you go.
Thanks for the catch. It should say powder, but mist is correct as the liquid needs to be added very slowly and in a mist for it to mix correctly.
love this! how many tabs does it make, roughly, if you’re making them about 1tsp size?
Hi!
Thanks for your wonderful blog, I have just subscribed and I am loving my new green/natural living healthier journey… 🙂
Could you suggest something that could be used instead of citric acid here as I don’t have any?
Many thanks
It doesn’t really say how much water.. do you just keep spraying until it’s crumbly? Thank you for this recipe. I’m excited to try it.
Hi Wellness Mama,
I’m totally obsessed with these toilet fizzies! I made about 15 of these guys and put it in an airtight container in my outside laundry. I noticed that they have all moulded together! I live in Australia and it’s winter now so I’m thinking humidity can’t be the reason?
Do you have any suggestions?
Thank you so much!
Every time I start thinking about wanting to try a DIY all natural alternative to something I always wonder if you have a post and sure enough google leads me right to you! I recently bought some Clorox toilet drop ins and while they work I don’t like the smell. My bathroom has like an institutional smell. It’s pretty icky to me. Once it is gone I want to try this. Thanks for always having suggestions that I know I can trust!
Do you still have to scrub?
I am about to have a baby and have 4 bathrooms on three floors. I am hoping I can drop these in the toilet bowls in between full cleanings, but I am wondering if their helpful on their own. I usually use Force of Nature and do a quick scrub and then wipe the rest of the seat, etc. with paper towels (yeah this is when I go disposable). Anyone know if these work pretty well without scrubbing? Otherwise, I already have force of nature bottles in each bathroom and can just do a quick spray and scrub anyways. Thank you!
They work well on their own, but I’d recommend scrubbing as well.
I too have made these. My housekeeper is exposed to a lot of chemicals every week, so I went all natural here at my house. My toilet fuzzies have wintergreen in them and a little borax powder. I think the borax makes it a little bit cleaner! I call mine ‘potty bombs’ and leave them out where one can plop one in after smelling up the bathroom.?
I like that idea! I am wondering where else I can use Borax. I have so many boxes from bulk orders.
Dealing with cleaning has always been a task for me. And, when it comes to the toilet it makes me go mad. Even though I use chemicals(that harm my skin), I don’t get good results. I’ll try this & see if it works for me. And, if it does, it will be a real help for me.
I want to try making something like this to use between cleanings but after doing some research I found out that citric acid (obviously an acid) and baking soda (a base) when combined will create a neutral ph which does nothing to clean. I can see using these as bath bombs as you want a neutral ph to use on your skin but not sure about their cleaning power? Can you please speak to this? Maybe it has something to do with the ratio of acid to base?
Wow!! That was quite the accidental discovery you had there. But this really looks very simple to make and more simpler to use. It is difficult to get natural toilet cleaning agents that are truly effective. I’m looking forward to using this tactic soon. Thank you for a great advice and a natural way to tackle those stubborn toilet stains.
I’d love to try out this recipe but I am not sure about cups vs. grams 🙁 different sources say different things. Can you please help?
Many thanks in advance.
Hi Wellness Mama!
What brand of toilet paper do you use? I just switched to recycled since I’m trying to avoid chlorine but just read an article that recycled may not be the way to go since it may have BPA in it? I’m so confused!!
Thanks!
Citric essential oils + baking soda in a glass container make a bomb. Please, please, be careful, I had one of these blow up in my face. Thankfully I wear glasses. Do not gift these to someone in a sealed glass jar you could cause them serious harm. I love the idea just make sure they can vent as they will continously produce small amount of gas that will build up in a jar.
FYI I used this recipe as inspiration for my day retainer cleaner tablets. I’m very happy with the results.
I’ve just made these. Being time poor I haven’t moulded them, just put in a plastic container as powder. I’ll head out to find a nice looking container or tin (not glass thanks to other comments) for the toilet fizz sometime this week. I’ve put some in the loo and awaiting for the magic to happen 🙂
I did a cost breakdown. (Using my costs, my scales)
2 cup big carb was 450g.
$7.30 1kg at 450g is $3.28.
2\3c citric acid
$6.50 1kg for 100g is 0.65
I’m not sure exactly how to work out cost of the oils as I don’t know how many drops per jar lol and I didn’t weigh the drops. But I used 30 drops of citrus.
So 1 tsp weighed in at 6g. The whole weight was 550 so we have 91.5 treatments 🙂
I’m usually a every second day toilet cleaner so that’s going to last me around 6 months at a cost of $3.93 not including the oil! Not bad ? I’m prob chuck some vinegar in too so ill have to work out that additional cost if its needed.
Do you know if these fizzles are hard on your water pipes? Just wondering if the citric acid tends to corrode them.
Not that I’ve found, but check with a plumber if you’re worried about it…