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These homemade toilet cleaning bombs use the power of citric acid to clean your toilet.
All you need is a few other ingredients and a silicone mold to form these little tablets.
Here is how you can make them at home too.
Homemade Toilet Cleaning Bombs
You can check out our instagram video here. Be sure to follow us on IG for fun videos and tips
Ingredients:
- 2 cups baking soda
- 1/2 cup citric acid
- 2 tbsp dish soap
- Optional: 30-40 drops of essential oil for scent
- Silicone mold
Directions:
- In a bowl, mix the baking soda and citric acid until combined.
- Next, drizzle in the dish soap.
- Using a spoon or gloved hands, gentle mix until the consistency is similar to cookie dough. You want it to be moldable. If your mixture seems a little dry for some reason, add in another drizzle of dish soap.
- Now you can add in your essential oil and do one final, gentle mix.
- Press mixture into the silicone molds and allow it to dry overnight.
- Once dry, take the toilet bombs out and add to a container preferably one with a lid.
Shop The Ingredients In Our Amazon List:
To make it easier, I made an amazon list just for these toilet bombs. You can shop all the ingredients here.
How To Use These DIY Toilet Cleaning Bombs:
Once a week, add a toilet bomb to the toilet. Let it fizz and react, then sit for about 5 minutes. Clean the toilet with a toilet brush making sure to get this solution all over the toilet bowl.
I like to use these in between regular toilet cleaning with our DIY toilet bowl cleaner.
How Do These Simple Homemade Toilet Cleaning Bombs Work?
This mixture is so simple to make, but the science is very cool!
If you remember, we have talked about using an acid + a base for cleaning many times on Chemistry Cachet. One of the most common acid and base reactions is using baking soda and vinegar. It is a very misused solution, but it has benefits. You can read more about using vinegar and baking soda in this post.
Citric Acid + Baking Soda
When you combine citric acid plus baking soda, then add it to water, the reaction produces carbon dioxide and a salt.
The benefit of this is when they react together to form the carbon dioxide, you get a solution that breaks up grime and stains.
Since citric acid is a powder and so is baking soda, this makes it a great option for creating bombs that will fizz in water. This is also how many homemade bath bombs are made.
A similar reaction is when we used baking soda, then applied vinegar for our homemade carpet cleaner.
You can learn more about how citric acid works in this blog post. You can get more information about baking soda in this post.
So, you can mix up an acid and a base?
When you mix a powdered base with a powdered acid, they won’t react until they are mixed in water. This is what makes these a great option for making tablets. If you mix a liquid acid, like vinegar, with a powdered base, like baking soda, it will react right away. You would never want to bottle vinegar and baking soda because the only benefits of using them together is the reaction itself. This is why in the carpet cleaner we mentioned above, they are applied in separate steps.
Dish Soap
The dish soap in this works as a binder to make the toilet bombs moldable, but it is also a surfactant. When the bombs hit the water, react and fizz, it releases the dish soap which will give you some scrubbing power. As you know, I prefer Dawn for DIY cleaners because the cleaning power is better than most others I have tested. But for this recipe, you can use any dish soap you like. The main reaction is the citric acid and baking soda mixture for cleaning.
Essential Oil
I always use the Purify essential oil for cleaning toilets because it smells really fresh. It can help with odors too! You can use another strong essential oil in this recipe if you have one on hand.
More Toilet Cleaning Tips
We shared a blog post with all of our favorite toilet cleaning hacks in this post.
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Alexis is an investigative chemist sharing her expertise in cleaning, skincare, gardening, and home hacks. She personally tests out products like the best skincare products or home products then shares not only the science behind how it works, but also her personal results. She is the mom of two living in Texas with her husband. Find her on Instagram for fantastic videos, tips, and behind the scenes.
Damn sounds like a bloody good idea, I think my daughter would like this information
They work so well!
BUT, does these sanitize the toilet bowl?
And if yes, what makes it sanitize the bowl?
No, disinfecting is a separate step. We recommend using pure 70% rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide or Force of Nature. Here are more toilet cleaning hacks to learn more.
I’m reading all your cleaning articles with interest! Does having baking soda in the mix affect the citric acid’s ability to remove/prevent limescale under the water line? Thank you
The baking soda and the citric acid have to react together to form carbon dioxide which breaks up all the hard water, stains, etc. The reaction is the most important part of this recipe. Due to the ratios though, it doesn’t completely “cancel” out the citric acid’s benefits 🙂
Hi, have a question can I use vinegars instead citric acid?
Not for this recipe, it will need to be the powder version of an acid in order to keep the tablets from activating until they get into water. The acid and base will react when they are dropped into the toilet.
Hey! Do you think I could use this in the toilet tank? I have such hard water, and the mineral build up in the “jets” is getting bad. I’ve been able to use citric acid to successfully chelate the build up on all accessible areas, but the drain tubes (between the tank and the bowl) are more difficult. Citric acid alone isn’t working, probably because is doesn’t spend enough time in direct contact with the metal ions…it just flushes right through. Haha. I’m thinking that the carbon dioxide formation would help a lot, but I’m having difficulties thinking through how it might react while in the tank itself. Most of the (non-porcelain) tank components are plastic, plus some latex, rubber, stainless steel, and brass…the metals being my biggest concern…but maybe if I minimize the time spent in the tank? What do you think? Or do you have a different approach?
Thanks!!
You can definitely try this in the toilet tank! It needs to be scrubbed once it fizzes out. The key to hard water removal and mineral build up is breaking it apart, but then being able to scrap or scrub it off. Another option is to fill the tank with vinegar and allowing it to sit for 30 minutes to an hour. Sometimes the best way to get build up off is the acid having a long time to work!
Could I also use sodium percarbonate with this mixture?
Yes you can, but you might need to adjust the dish soap ratio to make sure it can still be molded 🙂
Thank you! I wasn’t sure because I read elsewhere that I shouldn’t mix & store sodium percarbonate with citric acid. Also that the sodium percarbonate only activates with warm/hot water.
Many store-bought products like non-toxic dishwashing tablets or laundry mixes contain both sodium percarbonate and citric acid. It has a similar pH as baking soda, so it is fine. It activates in liquid, so when it drops in toilet, it will start to dissolve.