Banish stubborn toilet stains 'permanently' with two products - not bleach

No matter how clean you try to keep the toilet, stubborn stains can often appear (Image: Getty)

Cleaning the bathroom is nobody's favourite household chore to do, but it's necessary - especially where the toilet is concerned.

And if you live in an area with hard water, then it's even more of a nightmare to keep clean.

Over time, limescale can start to cause unsightly marks inside of the bowl that don't seem to disappear no matter how often you give it a scrub.

And when this happens, many of us might automatically think to grab the bleach and use that to tackle the stains.

However, according to Lynsey Queen of Clean, this may not always be the best solution.

Limescale and hard water build-up can result in brown stains (Image: Getty)

The cleaning guru recently took to TikTok to reveal her secret for keeping your toilet sparkling and free of stains, and she recommended avoiding bleach altogether - as two other products can do the job even better.

She said:"I always get asked about stubborn toilet bowl stains. The truth is, they’re actually super easy to fix! Bleach only masks the problem—it doesn’t get rid of it for good."

The expert instead hailed citric acid as her 'go-to' product to break down those brown hard water stains. If they're 'really bad', you should use around 250g, which is usually a full box.

Pour this down the toilet and leave it to do the job overnight, then in the morning, you should find that the stains have been broken down and should simply disappear when you flush.

And the main benefit is that citric acid will prevent the marks from coming back, rather than just masking it like bleach does.

Lynsey's second recommendation for getting rid of toilet stains is a pumice stone, similar to what's used for scraping hard skin off feet.

She said: "These ones have been designed specifically for toilets. Once you've used them, give them a really good wash with some antibacterial washing up liquid, let them dry, and keep them in a sealed bag."

To use these, simply pop on a pair of rubber gloves and use the stone to scrape away at any stains - they're non-abrasive so you don't need to worry about any scratches.

Lynsey raved: "It works so, so well. You literally have your hands down there for a minute, and you're going to pull all that horrible hard water limescale away."

You can buy citric acid from most major supermarkets - for example, it costs £1.75 from Asda and Tesco.

And a pack of two toilet pumice stones costs £5.99 from Amazon. But if you take Lynsey's advice and clean them properly after each use, as well as storing them in a sealed bag, you can use them again and again.