Shhhh! My dirty little secret.... #1

No, I'm not telling you that.

Or that.

But I will tell you this:

I don't scrub my showers.

Ever

Nevah evah.

I gave up on scrubbing them. I hated it.

Really hated it.

So much that -GASP!- I even considered hiring someone just to so I wouldn't have to.

I went on a journey to find the perfect shower cleaner. I tried homemade cleaners. I tried industrial cleaners. I tried concoctions that might be illegal in some states. I still needed to SCRUB the shower to get it really clean.

Sigh.

I hated scrubbing soap scum. I hated scrubbing the dirt off of where it stuck to the soap scum. I refused to scrub soap scum ever again. Then, I had an idea.

We were going to stop using soap.

I thoroughly scrubbed our showers for what I hoped would be the last time. I threw out all of our bar soap. Ok, not really. I dried them up and added them to our linen closet. I switched my whole family to body wash.

It worked! No more scrubbing the shower.

We switched back in 2008. I can count on my fingers the number of times that I have SCRUBBED a shower since then, and they all involve moving into a new house. I wipe down our shower once a week with a vinegar cloth to disinfect it and shine up everything. That's it. That's all it takes to clean my showers now.

Alright, I can see some of you naysaying me.

You're thinking that it won't work at your house because body soap won't cut the grunge of your husband who has a Mike Rowe worthy dirty job. I have a response to that. Two words: baking soda. Add a palmful of baking soda to a squirt of body soap and scrub. You'll be amazed. The bonus, besides getting him clean, exfoliating, and clarifying his skin- it even polishes the shower floor on the way to the drain.

Some of you are shaking your head and saying. Body soap for the whole family?!? I can't afford that! Well, you know your budget better than I do. You may not be able to. I will tell you that I buy ours with a lot of coupons. I buy store brands when I can't get coupon match-ups. I think overall, it does cost slightly more- around $5 a month more. I can rationalize the price difference. I have three showers in my home. My labor and time is worth more than that $5 to me.

So there it is. Dirty Little Secret Numeral Uno. I have not scrubbed my showers in over 4 years!