<\/p>\n
A shower curtain liner is the single dirtiest textile in most homes, and the great majority of them are thrown away rather than washed, usually because people do not realise washing is an option.<\/p>\n
Nearly all of them go in the machine, and it takes one cycle.<\/p>\n
The pink or orange film along the bottom is not mould. It is a bacterium that feeds on soap residue and body oil, and it appears in the wettest, least ventilated part of the curtain first.<\/p>\n
The black spotting higher up is mildew, and that one is mould.<\/p>\n
Both are living on the same food source, which is soap scum. That is why a liner that is rinsed after showering stays clean far longer than one that is not, and why the problem returns quickly if you only address the visible growth.<\/p>\n
Hard water makes it worse, because minerals combine with soap to form a deposit that holds everything else in place.<\/p>\n
It goes in the machine. This surprises people.<\/p>\n
Put it in with two or three bath towels. The towels act as scrubbers against the plastic and stop the liner balling up into a sealed lump that nothing reaches.<\/p>\n
Warm water, gentle cycle, normal detergent, plus half a cup of bicarbonate of soda in the wash.<\/p>\n
Add half a cup of white vinegar to the rinse, which dissolves the mineral and soap deposit.<\/p>\n
Never put a plastic liner in the dryer.<\/strong> It melts, and it will coat the drum.<\/p>\n Hang it straight back on the rail dripping wet and let it drip dry in place. It dries flat, without creases, and there is nothing else to do.<\/p>\n Fabric liners wash normally, warm, with towels for the same scrubbing reason.<\/p>\n Decorative outer curtains follow their label. Most cotton and polyester ones wash cold or warm on gentle. Hang them damp to avoid ironing.<\/p>\n Leave the hooks on if they are plastic, since they help the curtain hold its shape in the drum. Remove metal ones, which rust and can mark the fabric.<\/p>\n A vinyl liner that has gone cloudy, brittle, or cracked is at the end of its life and washing will not restore it.<\/p>\n Black mildew that has grown into the seams or the hem, rather than sitting on the surface, generally does not come out.<\/p>\n Everything else is worth washing first.<\/p>\n The prevention here is unusually effective, and it is almost entirely about air and water.<\/p>\n Close the curtain after showering.<\/strong> Counterintuitive, and correct. A curtain bunched at one end holds water in every fold and stays wet all day. Spread flat, it dries in an hour.<\/p>\n Rinse it down.<\/strong> Ten seconds with the shower head aimed at the liner removes the soap film that everything feeds on.<\/p>\n Run the fan.<\/strong> Twenty minutes after the shower, not two. This does more than anything else on the list.<\/p>\n Keep the bottom out of standing water.<\/strong> A liner that sits in a puddle in the tub is permanently wet at the hem, which is exactly where the pink film starts.<\/p>\n Wash it monthly and it will essentially never look bad.<\/p>\n Bath mats want washing weekly, hot, and they hold far more than people think. Check the backing first, because rubber-backed mats must be air dried, since a dryer degrades the rubber and it comes off in sheets.<\/p>\n Towels want hot water, a small detergent dose, and never fabric softener, which destroys absorbency.<\/p>\n And the bathroom hamper is worth a look, since a hamper in the most humid room in the house is a damp box holding damp clothes.<\/p>\n This is a harder problem here than in most of the country, and the reason is straightforward.<\/p>\n From roughly November through April the outdoor air is damp, the house is closed up, and there is very little air exchange. A bathroom in a Pacific Northwest winter often does not fully dry between showers, which means the liner never gets the dry stretch it needs. That is why liners here grow the pink film and the black spotting faster than the general advice assumes.<\/p>\n The extractor fan is not optional in those months, and twenty minutes is the minimum. If the bathroom has no fan, a cracked window for half an hour does the same job even in the cold, since cold air holds very little moisture and pulls it out of the room efficiently.<\/p>\n Monthly washing is the right interval here rather than the every-few-months most guidance suggests, and it is worth putting on a calendar through the wet half of the year.<\/p>\n Summer is genuinely different. June through September the dry season here does the work for you and a liner will stay clean with very little attention.<\/p>\n Liners, bath mats, and towels all want hot water and real volume, and rubber-backed mats plus a full set of towels is more than a small drum handles in one go.<\/p>\n The machines at our self-service laundry on NE Vancouver Mall Drive<\/a> reach higher wash temperatures and take the whole bathroom in one load rather than three.<\/p>\n Our machines and the store are cleaned daily.<\/p>\n Nou wash-dry-fold service<\/a> covers the everyday laundry when the week runs long.<\/p>\n Plastic and vinyl liners go in the washing machine, which most people do not realise. Wash warm with two or three towels in with them, since the towels scrub and stop the liner balling up, plus bicarbonate of soda in the wash and vinegar in the rinse. Never put a plastic liner in the dryer, and hang it back up dripping wet to dry flat. The pink film is a bacterium feeding on soap scum, not mould, so rinsing the liner after showering prevents most of it. Spread the curtain out rather than bunching it, and run the fan twenty minutes. Wash monthly and it will not go bad.<\/p>\n WaveMAX Vancouver<\/a> is at 8109 NE Vancouver Mall Drive, easy to reach from Vancouver and the surrounding area. If the bathroom load is more than your machine takes, call us at 360-433-9864<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A shower curtain liner is the single dirtiest textile in most homes, and the great majority of them are thrown away rather than washed, usually because people do not realise washing is an option. Nearly all of them go in the machine, and it takes one cycle. What grows on them The pink or orange […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":10521,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"phone_number":"","address":"","times":"","business_hours":"","google_maps_url":"","wdf_price":"","wdf_minimum":"","wdf_standard_price":"","wdf_24_hour_rush_price":"","wdf_includes_hangers":"","wdf_detergent_included":"","wdf_color_sorting":"","wdf_same_day_available":"","wdf_promo_bar_text":"","google_rating":"","facebook_url":"","instagram_url":"","google_review_url":"","promo_bar":"","owner_name":"","neighborhood":"","contact_email":"","app_url":"","ss_price_min":"","ss_price_max":"","ss_dryer_price":"","ss_dryer_minutes":"","num_washers":"","num_dryers":"","pickup_delivery_url":"","pickup_delivery_price":"","testimonial_1_name":"","testimonial_1_text":"","testimonial_1_rating":"","testimonial_2_name":"","testimonial_2_text":"","testimonial_2_rating":"","testimonial_3_name":"","testimonial_3_text":"","testimonial_3_rating":"","city":"","state":"","zip":"","last_wash_time":"","promo_bar_text":"","postal_code":"","location_video_url":"","google_place_id":"","latitude":"","longitude":"","pickup_delivery_available":false,"is_open":false,"ghl_api_token":"","ghl_location_id":"","ghl_webhook_url":"","_et_pb_page_layout":"","local_video_url":"","news_video_html":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-10715","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wavemaxlaundry.com\/ht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wavemaxlaundry.com\/ht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wavemaxlaundry.com\/ht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wavemaxlaundry.com\/ht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wavemaxlaundry.com\/ht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wavemaxlaundry.com\/ht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12544,"href":"https:\/\/wavemaxlaundry.com\/ht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10715\/revisions\/12544"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wavemaxlaundry.com\/ht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wavemaxlaundry.com\/ht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Fabric liners and curtains<\/h2>\n
When to replace instead<\/h2>\n
Making it last<\/h2>\n
The rest of the bathroom<\/h2>\n
The Vancouver part<\/h2>\n
When the bathroom load piles up<\/h2>\n
The short version<\/h2>\n