How to clean the bathroom in 30 minutes (or less) 

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You’ve got half an hour to clean the bathroom before your guests arrive. There’s pee all over the toilet seat, empty toilet paper tubes on the side and dribbles of toothpaste everywhere in the sink except down the plughole. It’s all evidence of lives lived, and if your loved ones weren’t there to make those messes, well... You know you wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Here’s how to clean a bathroom in 30 minutes or less: express bathroom cleaning tips to help you out if you’re in a hurry. 

1. Before the bathroom cleaning commences… 

First thing’s first: if you want to know how to clean a bathroom quickly and have a little fun in the process, set an alarm and crank up the music to get you motivated. Before bathroom cleaning begins, it’s important to get organised. That means assembling your cleaning squad (this is quickest as at least a two-person job), and your equipment, including brushes, sponges, cloths, paper towels, rubber gloves, sprays and glass cleaners, and clearing everything out of the room. This might also give you a chance to regift that body wash that’s been unopened since last Christmas!

2. Cleaning the bathroom shower, bath and basin 

Just because you’re short on time, doesn’t mean you can’t do a deep clean. Bathroom basins, tubs and showers all need proper cleaning. 

Pull on your protective gloves, spray specialised bathroom-cleaning solution on the relevant (and grossest) areas (making sure you follow the labels’ instructions) and get your partner or housemate to start scrubbing while you move on to the next task.  

3. How to clean a bathroom toilet 

Knowing how to clean the bathroom toilet of all of its pee stains and marks is easy. Just squirt toilet cleaner around the rim and leave for as long as you can – a couple of hours is best, but at the start of your 30-minute window will work just fine. In the meantime, you can tackle your other bathroom cleaning jobs and then wipe down the outside of the toilet. Let’s be honest, there’s probably some pee on there too (somehow), seat and handle with a piece of kitchen towel and a spray of bathroom cleaner. Once you’re done, you can give the bowl a good scrub with a toilet brush.

4. Bathroom cleaning tips for shiny surfaces

Next bit: Free your bathroom mirrors and glass of toothpaste spray and squeezed acne splatter. One of the best cleaning tips for bathroom mirrors is to use a specialist glass cleaner and then wiping it away with a dry piece of paper towel – that way you won’t leave bits behind on the surface.  

5. Rinse and repeat 

Now that you’ve finished most of your quick bathroom cleaning routine, you can rinse off the cleaner that you sprayed on the bath, shower and sink. Use a light scourer to help get all the gunk and grime off, then rinse again and wipe down to make sure all the cleaning fluid has gone too. 

6. Deep clean the bathroom floor (or cheat)

If you’ve sped through de-gunging the sink and making the bath look less browngreyyellow – give the floor a deep clean. Bathroom floors get covered in sticky blobs of lotion and bits of fluff so if you can give it a thorough scrub and mop, great! But if you want a lifehack — one of our favourite bathroom cleaning tips is to give it a quick spray and rub with some strong-when-wet paper towel.

7. Re-stock your bathroom products

That’s your ‘just in time’ bathroom cleaning routine clean done. All that’s left is for you to replace the items you took out and put them back in the right place so that your guests won’t have to waddle around the bathroom in search of the toilet paper! 

It's always the ones you love that make the most mess – and the bathroom is full of opportunities for them to make that mess. But when you love them (and when cleaning the bathroom is this easy), scraps of hair left around the plughole are no big deal.