Cleaning your toilet and the rest of your bathroom is usually enough to get rid of urine odours, but sometimes a different approach is needed.
The smell needs to be killed at the source which is typically around the toilet bowl or on the floor around the base of the toilet.
While bleach is known to eliminate germs, it’s not the best thing to remove urine odours from bathrooms.
Having failed when using bleach to remove the smell, one cleaning fan tested out a common household item for this task – shaving foam.
Taking to the Mrs Hinch Cleaning Tips and Tricks Facebook page, Krystal Healsey said: “Ok so I used bleach first to get rid of the urine smell in my boys’ bathroom but that didn’t work.
“Then I used shaving foam after hearing about it loads and it worked like a dream. The smell was gone quickly. It only took five minutes.”
However, Krystal did explain that she accidentally got on the baseboard behind her toilet and some of the paint came off.
She said: “No big deal. I can fix it, but now I know that shaving foam removes paint from floors and carpets with ease.”
For this hack to work, all you have to do is spray the shaving foam inside, on top, and around the toilet. Anywhere that urine might settle. Make sure you spray it around the base of the toilet on the floor too.
There’s no need to scrub for this method, just let it sit for a while before clearing it away.
Avoid leaving the shaving foam sitting for a long time as the smell will be gone almost immediately. If it sits and then dries onto your floor, it’s going to be a pain to clean up and can even damage certain types of flooring.
Cleaning it off the floor probably seems like it’s going to be a lot of work and it would be if you were just planning on cleaning it all up with a sponge and water.
The trick is to scoop it up. You can use a plastic cup for this or a dustpan with a squeegee also works well. Just do a quick wipe-down after with a wet cloth, and you’ll be done.
Shaving foam is a common item many will have in their bathroom cabinets. If not it is cheap to buy from stores. Shaving foam retails for £1 at Boots and for £2 at Superdrug.
Mrs Hinch fans also shared other things that can be cleaned with shaving foam like mattresses, carpets and mirrors.
Sharing before and after pictures of cleaning her coffee-stained mattress, Louise Ogden wrote: “Worked on my mattress that was covered in coffee.”
Rosie Owen said: “Been using it for years on my carpets, furniture, inside ovens, stainless steel sinks, glass and if you spray on the bathroom mirror and buff off your mirror won’t steam up.”