This fun little nuggets of citrussy-scented cleaning power are like bath bombs for your toilet, except instead of softening your skin, they fizzle away at your dirty toilet bowl. As far as toilet cleaning goes, these are actually pretty fun. That’s not much, but it’s something.
The basic premise and process is pretty much identical to that of bath bombs. High pH + low pH = fizz. And, when all the ingredients are dry, you can lighten moisten them and press them into shapes, and then let them dry, and have fizz at the ready.
Just a few changes were required make these cleaning toilet bombs instead of bath bombs. First off, I swapped out the baking soda (USA / Canada) for washing soda, which is a stronger base and cleaner.
Up next, I added ground soap and some ground up sodium percarbonate. Sodium percarbonate = Oxyclean, and you can make your own by mixing equal parts washing soda and hydrogen peroxide in a glass jar. It’ll be liquid at first, but leave it for a few days and you’ll have a jar coated in white powder. You can scrape that off into your DIY coffee grinder and blitz it into a very useful powder.
After that, there’s not much that’s too different. I would have left the epsom salts out, but they are wonderfully effective at helping the mixture form shapes when they get a bit wet, so in they stayed.
Lemon Eucalyptus Toilet Bombs
4 tbsp citric acid
1/2 cup washing soda
1/2 cup epsom salts
1 tbsp ground soap
1 tbsp sodium percarbonate
15 drops lemon essential oil
15 drops eucalyptus essential oilWitch hazel in a spritzer, to bind
Blend the citric acid, washing soda, epsom salts, ground soap, sodium percarbonate, and essential oils together in a food processor or coffee grinder (though this will require several batches) and transfer to a large, wide bowl.
Now it’s time to add just enough liquid to get the mixture to hold together in a mold. Not too much, though, or it will react in the bowl/mold, not in your toilet. That’s why we’re using a mister (it’ll spread the moisture better) and witch hazel (for some reason the reaction isn’t as vigorous when you use witch hazel, plus they dry faster, apparently).
So, spread your mixture out in your bowl so you have as much surface area as possible, and spritz. Then stir thoroughly. And repeat until you can grab a clump of the mixture and it will hold together when you pack it into a tablespoon and tap it out. I usually recommend the “firm squeeze” method for testing bath bombs, but for some reason these held together beautifully in moulds, but not in my hand.
Once the mixture will hold together, pack it into a mold of your choice (for these I like a tablespoon), and then tap it out onto a sheet of wax paper. Let dry overnight. Store in an airtight jar.
To use, drop one or two in your toilet. Once they’ve stopped fizzing, scrub away.
If you like more fizz, you can add more citric acid, but more acid will start counteract the effectiveness of the washing soda, which is a base.
Wow, this sounds much more funnier than “normal” toilet cleaning stuff! If I can find some epsom salt and sodium perchlorate (don’t know what that is), I will try these.
I know our pharmacies usually sell epsom salts for muscle soaks, and you can make sodium perchlorate yourself by mixing equal parts washing soda and hydrogen peroxide and letting it dry 🙂
You can get a generic or store-brand type of Oxyclean at the Dollar tree– usually they have 1lb containers (=2 cups) . . . sometimes they have the bonus 2lb size!
You can also get Sun brand at either Dollar General, Family Dollar or Walmart… They usually have the 6lb tubs for about $5.00.
All it is, is a mix of washing soda & peroxide (making it a non-chlorine fabric whitener.
Just for information—Sodium per-chlorate, is not the same as Oxyclean… I believe “Chlorate” refers to a chlorine base. . .
Thanks for the info, I fixed it!
Unsented oxiclean I get it at Costco. Sane with episisalt get the sented if you want to skip getting the oils.
I had no idea that you could make Oxyclean at home! Thank you for sharing 😀
Thanks for reading, Jen!
Hi! I mixed washing soda with hydrogen peroxide, but most of it hardened into a single block that I’m having trouble breaking up enough to put in the blender. I added the soda slowly to the peroxide, stirring constantly, and I stirred for a while before leaving it to react for a couple of days. Any suggestions for breaking it up? Or do I just need to give it another day or two to dry? Thanks!
Hey, would love to try this but was wondering can you use sodium percarbonate in place of sodium perchlorate?
I haven’t tried it, but from what I’ve read it should work 🙂
Thanks for that, looking forward to trying and I have a little lemon peel powder which I thought might be a good additive? What do you think. Can’t wait to try these out and for gifts too!!
Hi Jenny! Some lemon peel powder sounds like it would be lovely 🙂 Thanks for reading!
Yes, sodium percarbonate IS the same as Oxyclean type.
Thanks! 🙂
Nice idea !!! A bit off topic, but would appreciate tips on how to grind soap. I have tried, but not successful.
Thanks.
Hi Mike! To grind soap it must first be very hard and very dry, or it’ll gum up your coffee grinder. I like to use the super dried out scraps I trim off new batches of bars (a few months after the fact, of course). After that you can lubricate the mixture a bit by adding some baking soda to the grinder—it’ll help keep the bits from glomping back together 🙂
Great…..thanks for this tip.
No worries!
I’ve used a cheese grater to grate up soap. Works great for smaller batches, and it doesn’t matter if the soap is hard or softish.
But I generally prefer my liquid soap, so I’m going to try it in this!
I’d be careful with that—adding liquid to these will cause them to react with themselves before you get a chance to use ’em 😉
I take my bars and first shred them thru a cheese grater, spread them out on a cookie sheet & wait a day or so for them to dry out… then I zap them in the coffee grinder… makes for a nice granulated mix … dryer soap shreads, will be more of a powder.
Thanks, Angel!
So awesome! I’m so excited to try these. I love cleaning our toilets with oxyclean (thanks for showing us how to make it!!) because it works better than anything else, but it does make a bit of a mess sometimes around the sides of the toilet. I’ve been meaning to find a spray that doesn’t have a fake fragrance but now I’m going to just make these!
Awesome! Let me know how you like them 🙂
Hello! I adore your blog! It’s because my regular Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday reads!
When you say, “equal parts baking soda and hydrogen peroxide”, is it equal in grams or mL?
Thank you in advance!
Hi Catherine! Thanks so much for reading & DIYing with me 🙂
I generally just eyeball it in a container—I’ll fill it about halfway with baking soda, and then top it off with hydrogen peroxide. Works for me, lol!
Question for you. I am thinking of putting these in my office bathroom, for clients to drop in to cover-up the smell of certain things that occur in the toilet. I realize this is a cleaning toilet bomb, but do you think I could present them this way, as a deodorizer for clients to use, too?
OMG…just made a batch–soooo cute and FUN to make! Thank you! I used ruby-red grapefruit and Eucalyptus. Was also thinking of trying Thieves essential oil blend next batch–extra sanitizing. 😉 Thank you so much for all you do and all your fun recipes. I really appreciate you.
Awesome! Thanks so much for DIYing with me 🙂 Enjoy your new (slightly more enjoyable) toilet cleaning 😉
I used a mold pan in the shapes of sea horses, starfish, and clam shells. They’ll make great gifts. Thanks again.
I love it! I have a silicone mould that makes up little RMS Titanic’s… that would be pretty darn funny for these!
onegoodthingbyjillee.com has a great recipe for what you want:
Number 2 Spray.
Here is the recipe for that, which I think would work much better than this which is more for actual cleaning of the toilet bowl:
20 drops Lemongrass essential oil
20 drops Grapefruit essential oil
20 drops Bergamot essential oil
2 ounces of water
(1) 2 oz dark glass spray bottle
Fill the spray bottle with water, add 20 drops each of the Lemongrass, Grapefruit and Bergamot essential oils, and shake.
Just from looking at this it’s pretty obvious that it won’t emulsify, so you’ll have to give ‘er a good shake or add an oil-in-water emulsifier like polysorbate 20.
Yes, I did forget to add that it needs to be shaken each time you use it. I wouldn’t adulterate this with anything else. Defeats the purpose of natural!
Since I use many recipes for cleaning, beauty and etc. I naturally shake anything I use anyway, so it is secondhand habit for me!
🙂
Hmm. It should help, but you might want to double the EOs if deodorizing is your primary objective 🙂
Where can I buy sodium perchlorate and citric acid?
You can make sodium perchlorate (equal parts washing soda & hydrogen peroxide mixed & left to dry), and you can get citric acid from any of the suppliers I link to in the big box above the comments 🙂
Pardon me, please. . . but I believe that you are using the wrong term/ingredient. . . . .
Oxy-type cleaners are Sodium perCarbonate — which is sodium carbonate (washing soda) and peroxide. . . the combination of the 2 produces Sodium percarbonate… Not sodium perchlorate. . . . the term “Chlorate” would refer to a chlorine base…
Thanks, Angel! I am no chemist and it would appear I was too trusting of my initial source on this and/or I remembered it wrong, haha 🙂
So I don’t know why, but I’ve left my glass jar of equal parts baking soda and hydrogen peroxide out for 2 weeks, Its still liquid and powder separated. It has not evaporated into the white powder you can grind. What’s going on???
Oops! I just looked back and realized I had a big “derp” and said baking soda instead of washing soda 🙁 Try it with washing soda, that should work better.
is this safe for pets who might drink out of the toilet? i do cleaning on the side and my client doesnt like me to use cleaning products on the toilet cause her dog drinks out of it at times and gets sick when cleaning products are used.
Hi Monica! Assuming the toilet is scrubbed out and flushed/well-rinsed afterwards, the dog should be ok. The concentrations are fairly low once you have individual “bombs”, and then they are further diluted once they’re added to the toilet. Nothing here is straight-out toxic like bleach, though I would not ever recommend eating anything in here. Yuck!
If you want to be totally safe, try mixing baking soda with a few squirts of hand soap and scrubbing with that.
Could you use this on toilets in travel trailers?
What are the restrictions for travel trailer toilets? These should be septic field safe as they don’t contain bleach.
I was reading on my box of generic oxyclean that it was just “sodium carbonate” and “sodium percarbonate”, which is….uh….baking soda and washing soda, I believe. This is stuff I add to the laundry. Perhaps non-generic oxyclean is something different? Like, the sodium perchlorate you speak of?
I’ve read several conflicting versions of exactly what Oxyclean is since writing this recipe, but hey, whatever works and is cheaper than the real stuff, right?
Oops, I forgot to tell you how to use Number 2 Spray:
spritz 3-5 shots into the toilet bowl BEFORE doing your ‘business’. The oils will coat the water, making smells from what goes in, nearly undetectable. If you do forget, and use it afterwards, the smell will be somewhat reduced, but not as well as if you had used it first.
😉
This DIY has been on my list for ages—I even have a cutesy name picked out for it 😛
Can you use stearic acid instead of citric acid?
No, definitely not. Stearic acid is a fatty acid, which doesn’t have a whole lot in common with citric acid other than having the word “acid” in the name. It’s a waxy solid, isn’t water soluble, and won’t react with the washing soda to fizz away—if you use stearic acid you will end up with a greasy toilet :/ Stick to the citric acid 😉
Hi Marie
I was fascinated by these little bombs, and made them last week. As I didn’t have witch hazel, I combined them with water (shouldn’t have, as they didn’t fizz in the toilet!). They eventually dissolved in the toilet anyway, but I was surprised that I couldn’t detect the lemon/eucalyptus smell at all when using! Did anyone else notice this when using? Or is one not supposed to as they’re submerged in water?
Thanks for all your inspiration! I now have a HUGE box of EOs, butters, oils, clays etc – am hooked!!
Hi Birgit! Sad to hear these didn’t fizz for you 🙁 You can always add a bit more citric acid to your next batch for more fizz, and try witch hazel instead of water as it reacts less from the get-go.
I kept the EO amounts fairly low here as I was more interested in the disinfectant properties in the toilet than the smell, but you can definitely amp ’em up in the future if you prefer a fragrant toilet 😉
Thanks for reading & DIYing with me!
Marie,
Mine fizz just a tiny bit and don’t dissolve much… I even tried adding hot water!
I think I used too much witch hazel. Do you think if I just made a mix, and instead of shaping the bombs, just dump a Tablespoon of the powder in the toilet? That way there’s no risk of the reaction occurring before I want it to?
Hi Grace! You can definitely keep this as a straight powder, and if you really want more fizz, just add more citric acid 🙂
I love this idea! But I am curious about the “Arm N Hammer”. Why would you go through all this and support a company that does animal testing? I am just curious. Thank you!
It’s the only washing soda I’ve been able to find.
Is it safe for a septic tank? Thank you!
Hi Sandra! From everything I have read it should be perfectly safe 🙂
Hi, I just made the ‘homemade oxyclean’ and I have a question – do you mean parts by volume or weight? I put in 600 grams of hydrogen peroxide and was going to add 600 grams of washing soda when it appeared to be about triple the volume – can you clarify?
I did mine by volume (for once!) 🙂
I don’t know what I did. When I made it it got quite warm, then It fused into a solid, rock hard mass that is currently holding my stirring spoon captive. I tried adding more hydrogen peroxide to no avail. Any ideas what happened or what to do?
Just leave it for a few days and let it dry out—then you can smash it into a fine white powder and use it like that 🙂
I made it in a mason jar – half full. Should I just break the glass? What did you make it in?
I made mine in a mason jar as well and was able to crack the mass into a few chunks after it dried out. After that it came out of the jar easily and I was able to pop it into my DIY coffee grinder 🙂
Hi is there any way I can omit the witch hazel – we absolutely don’t have that in my country -searched everywhere. Can I bind it with spritzes of water?
Thanks.
Hi JG! You definitely can use water—just be sure to work extra carefully as it’s easier to get things fizzing away like mad with water 🙂
I also add 1 tablespoon hydrogen peroxide and 1 teaspoon alcohol (rubbing, 91% or greater) to the dry ingredients before I mist with the witch hazel. It adds a bit more cleaning and disinfecting actions. Just a thought you might try. I find it works great and everyone that has tried it has loved it.
Cool, thanks Kayla! That’s a great idea 🙂
Hi!
I just made these toilet bombs. They are sittng in a siicon mold to dry…interestingly, they look bloated and feel chewy. I’m curious if they are still going to fizz (I dropped a spoonful of the mixture in the toilet to try and it did).
I tried to make sodium percarbonate and there was some white powder around the edges of the glass, but not a lot. There was a lot of liquid sitting on the washing soda. How many days does it take to “develop” (talking about 1/2 cup of each)?
Thank you so much for the great recipes! I try something regularly. I was really impressed by the powdered deodorant. Love it for summer!
Hi Judith! If they look bloated and chewy it sounds like you may have added too much moisture—it sounds like they are reacting as they dry 🙁 I have definitely done this before. You probably won’t get much fizz.
The time it takes the percarbonate to dry depends on how dry your environment is; it dries quite quickly here (3 days?) since it’s very dry.
Thanks for reading! 🙂
Hi Marie, big fan! My question is can I just use “natural clean oxy” instead of making the mix as I have that at home?
I’m assuming that’s a shop-bought product? I have no familiarity with it, but if it’s powdered I can’t see why not 🙂
Hi, these came out nice and dry, but they don’t really melt or fizz much when in toilet (they seem hard as a rock). I used witch hazel and the other measurements as in the recipe above plus added a tbsp of dried ground lemon peel. Did I spray too much witch hazel in this case? Thanks
Hmm, odd. If you used too much witch hazel you’d have seen fizzing immediately, and they would’ve swollen up. Do you perhaps live somewhere quite humid, so they might’ve reacted with themselves/the air after you made them?
I wonder, would these be ok in the dishwasher?
I don’t recommend putting anything DIY’ed in any sort of big, expensive appliance like a washing machine or dishwasher—the scale at which things could go wrong is pretty substantial!
I saw bleach crystals in the store the other day, and wondered if they could be added to this recipe for an extra punch. Wasn’t sure of a reaction with the citric acid.
I wouldn’t try it. You can learn more here.