Picture a Day - Day 293

You can trust me.

Put you completely at ease didn't I? Telling you in no uncertain terms that you can trust me always one feel so much beetter. Going up to someone when their back is turned and telling them "You can trust me" while a growing Cheshire grin lights up your face is always like a cuddly blanket of warm fuzzies.

Nothing bad could ever come from that.

But really, you can trust me in this case to give a fair and balanced review of products that I buy with my own money and try on my own time. I really don't have a team of publicists out there trying to get a whole bunch of free stuff for me under the promise of a good review regardless of how much it sucks.

Plus no one knows that we actually have a mail service in Nebraska. Most people still think we have the buffalo express (and it's a little hard to get them into it).

A couple weeks back I wanted to try the latest from Scrubbing Bubbles (I can't have been the only one who thought their mascot would scrub my skin off if I stayed in the tub too long when I was younger right?) their Toilet Cleaning Gel.

I had to steal the picture from Walgreens as I, of course, tossed the box into recycling as soon as I got it open 'cause I'm a thinker like that.

I've been looking for something to help with the horrible water stains our toilets get and I thought this might be the answer. I used to be a big 2,000 (by that we mean more like 500) flushes and turning the toilet water blue (sure helped encourage little boys to go potty with the promise of turning it green) but while painting the bathroom I learned that apparently all those tank cleaning aids will actually void the toilet's warranty.

Yeah I didn't know a toilet had a warranty either.

But it didn't say anything about a glob of goo you put under the bowl.

When you open the box you pull out this little wand:
It's really simple to use, just take the cap off (which I didn't do in the picture below because I was demonstrating, yeah that's it) and push the top into the bowl then push in. The little button on the side should slide up one and there will be a round blob of what looks like kids crest toothpaste in your toilet.
Right off the bat the smell was over powering as hell. After a few flushes it calmed down but if you're bothered by strong astringent cleaning smells this isn't for you.

The package claims that the gel should only last for a week so in theory you'd have to replace it once a week but ours has been in there for two weeks and is going strong. Maybe it's the lack of kids or we need to be having more bathroom parties.

But, while the gel stays in place and probably keeps the water deodorized it hasn't done much if anything in helping to keep the water stains at bay. They still get awful inside of a week and demand attention just like before (the last thing you want to get stains is a bull horn).

I'm not so crazy about the need for a constant re-application and the disposable nature (though that's the name of the game with cleaning supplies anymore) of the product. While it's easy to use and seems to last longer than the packaging claims the scents a bit strong right out of the gate and so far hasn't done much to help my problem.

So final words/suggestions. If you just want to know you're keeping your toilet water clean and are also worried about voiding your toilets warranty (I wonder if accidentally dropping the toilet onto a cellphone would do it too) this is something worth trying. We may just have incredibly stubborn water stains as it looked pretty well liked with the Walgreens reviews.

I'll probably use up the rest of my package and then keep trying to think of something else to combat the horrors of an unfresh bowl!

But most of all I want you all to know that "You can trust me."