As you may remember, I did not move to our duty station at the same time as my husband. I had to pop a baby out of my body first before I could go cross country. So I don’t know if I can blame him or if it was there previously, but when I got here I noticed our bathtub had heelprint smudges all over the bottom. Now I know we are on an army base and these guys get really nasty out there in the field, but seriously? I like to take a bath. I don’t want to sit my butt down in your desert filth, especially if it’s not even my husbands desert filth. Gross

.
Um….gross.
I tried cleaning with as many household cleaning products as possible but I wasn't even making a dent. I used to work in the apartment community and I learned for plastic tubs you can use oven cleaner, but I really didn't like the idea of ventilating the house and keeping the minions out of the way. Off to troll pinterest! I found this concoction using baking soda, Dawn dish soap, and vinegar.

The measurements:
½ c white vinegar
½ c blue Dawn dish soap
4 tbsp baking soda

Radioactive Blue



The original post called for a spray bottle, but as we have seen my reputation with spray bottles, I went with the advice of the blogger above and just used a glass measuring cup and a washcloth. Heat the vinegar for 90 seconds in the microwave and then LET IT COOL for about the same amount of time. Unless you want Mt. Vesuvius on your hands, that is. Then slowly add in the baking soda and the Dawn dish soap after that. Just so you know, vinegar and heat? Smells awful. My house smelled like feet for the afternoon. Open a window when you do this.
Anyway, I proceeded to spread the concoction into the tub with a washcloth. It needs to sit for about two hours, I think I let it sit a little longer just in case. Then just rinse it! Be careful, because it makes way more bubbles than you may anticipate. I literally had bubbles coming out of the drain thing in the middle of the tub. And my washcloth was bubblelicious no matter how much I tried to rinse it, so eventually I just threw it in the washer as it was.

Apparently my shadow loves the camera.
The end result? It didn’t get everything out. (I feel like this is becoming a pattern...what a terrible way to start a blog!) But compared to what it looked like beforehand? I’ll take it. I ended up doing it again a week later, and the results were even better. I have noticed recently that even though I clean my tubs every week, my daughter’s tub is starting to get teeny heelprints as well. I don’t put my kid in the bath disgusting, so what the heck kind of tubs are these?! So I suppose I’ll start mixing up this potion once a month and slather it on just to keep the dirt level down. I’m sure after a couple more cleanings, all those smudges will be gone and I will post an update later on. But hey,  it beats the hell out of stinky oven cleaner. Take that, desert filth.
               

      The Before                                                                                       And After
                                                                (shut up about the lighting. and the shadow. and everything.