How to Use Your Washing Machine to Clean Your Shower Curtain

There's a quick and easy way to clean a dirty shower curtain using your clothes dryer and a few common household items!

What You’ll Need

• Two or three towels
• Laundry Detergent
• Baking Soda
• White Vinegar

Setting Up

First, put your washing machine on its “warm” setting. Now it’s time to measure out the baking soda, laundry detergent, and white vinegar. For mildly grimy curtains, use 3/4 of a cup of baking soda, 2/3 of a cup of vinegar, and 3/4 of a cup of laundry detergent. If your curtains have heavy-duty grime, increase the measurements to a full cup for the detergent and baking soda, and 3/4 of a cup of vinegar. Now we're ready to start washing!

Time to Wash

Put your towels and the shower curtain into your washing machine. Why are we adding towels to the mix? Because the towels will help to scrub away the grime on the curtain as they rub against it during the wash cycle. Now pour in the detergent and baking soda (but not the vinegar!), turn on your washing machine, and close the lid.

Let your washing machine work its magic until the rinse cycle starts. Stop the machine, open the lid, and pour in the vinegar. Close the lid, and let your washing machine resume the rinse cycle.

Don't get too comfortable, though. After the rinse cycle is complete, and before the last spin cycle, take out the cleaned curtain and hang it up to drip dry. Do NOT put your curtain in the dryer because it can shrink or even melt. But you can dry the towels as you normally do.

Extra Tip: If you've never cleaned your plastic shower curtain before and it has years’ worth of grime built up on it, your washing machine can only clean some of the curtain while loosening the remaining grime. Just use stain remover on any loosened grime and wipe it off with a wet rag.

And that's it! Now your old plastic shower curtain is free of grime and mildew!

Images used with permission, courtesy of Kyle Dotson