Remove Lime Calcium From Bathroom Tiles

Will Sugar Soap Original remove hardened lime and calcium from bathroom tiles?

No — Selleys Original Sugar Soap is not the best solution for built-up calcium and lime scale. Selleys recommends a product from the Hillmark range instead.

Hillmark Scalex Heavy Duty Home Descaler rapidly cleans scale from plastic and metal parts, and easily removes tarnish and mineral deposits from stainless steel shower heads. A warm solution of it will help eat away the built-up scale. For the best effect, use it with a Selleys Wash Up Wiz scouring cloth.

Why Sugar Soap is the wrong tool for scale

This is a chemistry mismatch rather than a strength problem, and understanding it saves you buying the wrong thing again.

Selleys Original Sugar Soap is a professional-strength alkaline cleaner with a pH of about 11. It is built to cut grease and grime, and it does that very well — soap scum, body oils, cooking grease, general household film. Lime and calcium are hardened mineral deposits, a different kind of soiling entirely, and they call for a descaler.

There is a second reason to keep Sugar Soap away from this particular job. Selleys' own advice elsewhere notes that Sugar Soap can leave a residue on hard surfaces such as glass or stainless steel — and a scaled-up bathroom is largely glass, chrome and glazed tile.

How to tackle the scale

1. Use a descaler, and use it warm. Selleys specifies that a warm solution of Scalex Heavy Duty will help eat away the built-up scale. Follow the dilution and directions on the descaler's own pack.
2. Give it contact time. A hardened deposit does not dissolve on a single wipe. Keeping the solution against the deposit is what does the work.
3. Agitate with a non-scratch cloth. The Selleys Wash Up Wiz is what Selleys nominates here. It is a reusable 250 mm × 250 mm cloth designed to remove stubborn stains from cooktops, splatter tiles and similar surfaces.
4. Rinse well and dry the surface. Drying is what stops the next deposit forming, particularly on shower glass and tapware.
5. Then clean normally. Once the scale is off, an ordinary bathroom clean will keep it off far longer than repeated descaling would.

Test first — the cloth as well as the cleaner

This is the limitation most likely to bite on a bathroom wall. The Selleys Wash Up Wiz's own guidance is that it may scratch or dull some soft plastics, painted surfaces, soft metals such as aluminium and copper, or very glossy surfaces — so test it in an inconspicuous area first.

Glazed bathroom tiles are a glossy surface, and a scouring cloth that leaves a dulled patch has done more damage than the scale. Try it low on the wall, behind the door, or under the vanity before you work on a wall you look at every day. The same applies to chrome tapware and any acrylic bath or shower base.

Other limits on the cloth: do not use it on extremely hot objects, bleach may discolour it, and avoid using it with strong solvents or highly abrasive cleaners, which damage the fibres and shorten its life.

Where Sugar Soap does belong in a bathroom

Selleys Original Sugar Soap's listed bathroom uses are tiles, bathtubs, basins, toilets, showers, glass and mirrors — with the instruction to rinse glass and mirrors well before the product dries. It is a capable bathroom cleaner for grease and grime; it simply is not a descaler.

If you do use it there, note the stated limitations:

• Wipe it off immediately from aluminium and brass surfaces. It can tarnish or discolour bare brass and aluminium.
• Rinse it well from glass before the product dries, or it leaves a hard salts deposit that is difficult to remove.
• Floors, baths and shower recesses must be rinsed well after use.
• Never mix it with another cleaner.

More on that in using Sugar Soap to clean your shower.

Safety: eye protection in the room where nobody wears it

Selleys Original Sugar Soap is classified as hazardous under Safe Work Australia GHS 7 with the signal word Danger, on one classification: serious eye damage, Category 1 — H318, causes serious eye damage. That is the only hazard class assigned; there is no skin, inhalation or flammability classification. No hazard data is reproduced here for the Hillmark descaler, which is not a Selleys product — read its own pack.

What H318 means on a shower wall

Category 1 is permanent damage, not stinging that passes. That is easy to underestimate with a product that has a reputation for being mild and old-fashioned. It is alkaline at roughly pH 11, and alkali injuries to the eye are more serious than acid ones because an alkali keeps penetrating the tissue rather than self-limiting.

The geometry of this job is the worst case for it. Cleaning tiles and a shower recess means working above your own head with a wet cloth, scrubbing at a wall, with solution running back down your forearm and dripping off the tile towards an upturned face. A bathroom is also the room where nobody puts safety glasses on, because it feels like housework rather than a job. Put them on before you start, and work the upper tiles with the cloth wrung out rather than loaded.

A splash is a 15-minute flush, not a rinse. Irrigate with copious water for a full fifteen minutes, holding the eyelids open, and ring the Poisons Information Centre. Blinking it out and carrying on is what turns a treatable exposure into a permanent injury — and with an alkali the damage continues while you decide.

The instruction never to mix Sugar Soap with another cleaner has a specific application here. This page has you move between an alkaline cleaner and an acidic descaler on the same wall. Rinse the surface thoroughly and let it clear before you switch products, rather than working one over the top of the other in a small unventilated room.

For the general bathroom cleaning this product is listed for, the range has lower-hazard options: Instant Sugar Soap is ready to use, with no decanting or dilution step, and carries only H319 (serious eye irritation, Category 2A); Sugar Soap Wipes (H315, H319) involve no liquid to splash at all, which suits overhead work.

Poisons Information Centre — 131 126 in Australia, 0800 764 766 in New Zealand.

Common questions

Will Sugar Soap remove lime scale at all?

It is not the best solution for built-up calcium and lime scale. It may shift some light deposit, but a descaler is the right product.

What should I use instead?

Hillmark Scalex Heavy Duty Home Descaler, which rapidly cleans scale from plastic and metal parts and removes tarnish and mineral deposits from stainless steel shower heads.

Does it need to be warm?

Selleys specifies a warm solution, which helps eat away the built-up scale.

What should I scrub with?

A Selleys Wash Up Wiz scouring cloth is what Selleys recommends for the best effect — but test it in an inconspicuous area first, because it may dull very glossy surfaces.

Will the cloth scratch my tiles?

It may scratch or dull some soft plastics, painted surfaces, soft metals such as aluminium and copper, and very glossy surfaces. Test somewhere hidden before you commit.

Can I use the descaler on the shower head?

Removing tarnish and mineral deposits from stainless steel shower heads is one of the stated uses of Scalex Heavy Duty.

How do I stop the scale coming back?

Dry the surfaces after use. Scale forms where hard water is left to evaporate on glass, tile and tapware.

My washing machine has the same problem — same product?

Selleys nominates a different Hillmark product for machines. See descaling a washing machine, and check with your machine's manufacturer first.

What about rust and mineral stains on concrete?

Also a job for an acidic cleaner rather than Sugar Soap — see removing fertiliser rust stains from concrete.