The Best Product to Clean your Toilet Bowl
Cleaning your toilet sucks, and is truly just gross. We weren't sure how to go about this, but we wanted to make toilet cleaning better. That's why we’ve tried every single toilet bowl cleaner under the sun. Keeping toilets clean is always a struggle, but we were stubborn and determined to figure out the easiest way.
We started with Amazon. We've found many hidden gems on Amazon, why should toilet bowl cleaners be any different? Amazon’s Choice for toilet bowl cleaners is the Vacplus Automatic Toilet Bowl Cleaner Tablets. These little tablets are extremely convenient as you simply have to drop one in your water tank every 20-ish flushes and it will do the rest of the cleaning for you. If you’ve ever been to someone’s home and they had blue water in their toilet, they probably used these.
We tried the Vacplus tablets, and we also tried all of their siblings. Clorox Bleach & Blue tablets, Scrubbing Bubbles Drop-Ins, Iron Out Automatic Tablets, and even Lysol Automatic In-The-Bowl Toilet Cleaners. We couldn't be accurate in determining if these automatic cleaning tablets worked if we hadn't tried them all.
None of them gave us quite the clean we wanted, and they always left us with a concern for pets and young children. The Clorox Bleach & Blue tablets were the most effective at cleaning our toilet bowl, but then we had bleach water sitting in out toilet. We didn’t want to risk the chance that we accidentally left it open and a four-legged friend walked by for a drink. They also left streaks of blue in our toilet bowl that required a lot of extra work to scrub out.
Not to mention, the automatic tablets didn’t clean quite how we wanted. If you needed a last-second scrub right before guests came over, you'd be out of luck. Or, if anything was stuck to the bowl, there was no resolution - you'd have to grab your toilet brush. If you do want to use automatic tablets, we would recommend them as a compliment to your toilet cleaning as opposed to your main solution. Overall, we just didn't love the automatic cleaning tablets that Amazon had recommended.
Our next step was to visit a store in-person. Maybe physically seeing and holding a product would lead us to finding the best one. Browsing the aisles of our local stores led us to believe that the best solution might be gel toilet bowl cleaner. We would understand if you had the same misconception. There. Are. Literally. So. Many. Options. Like. SO. Many. How could the most readily available product, with the most variants and competitors, not be the best option?
While the gel toilet bowl cleaner cleaned better than the automatic cleaner, it introduced a huge issue. Cleaning your toilet bowl is gross, and who wants to get so close and personal with a toilet bowl? It can also be extremely difficult to get into the upper rim of your toilet bowl effectively, as the cleaner will start dripping as soon as it is applied. The upper rim and spraying jets are some of the parts that need the most cleaning, so gel toilet bowl cleaner just won’t do. We created this graphic below so that you can see what we mean.
With gel cleaner, we were forced to get up close and personal with our toilet bowl, and we weren’t even getting a full clean. We went back to our local store to find the solution, and that’s when we became enlightened. Clorox and Scrubbing Bubbles had already created a product that takes all of the advantages of gel toilet bowl cleaner, and resolves our two largest complaints. If you want the best toilet bowl cleaning experience, you need a toilet wand. We’re here to help you pick the best one.
What Should You Know First?
The Clorox ToiletWand and Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Brush have a lot of similarities. Both provide you with a long handle, so you won’t have to stick your face into your toilet anymore. These handles also have a release button, so you won’t have to touch the dirty pad after cleaning your toilet bowl. They also use one-time-use cleaning pads/heads, so you’ll need to purchase refills when you fall in love with either of these toilet wands.
Both of these are fantastic products. The Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Brush has 7,660 customer reviews with an average rating of 4.6 stars. The Clorox ToiletWand has 50,468 customer reviews with an average rating of 4.7 stars. Clearly, people love these toilet wands, and we are confident you will as well.
That’s about all of the similarities, so let’s jump into our full review and comparison of both the Clorox ToiletWand and the Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Brush. At the end, we’ll advise on a clear winner. If you just want to know which one is better, see the final paragraph.
Clorox ToiletWand Review
This is a premium experience. You buy a Clorox ToiletWand, and then, next thing you know, you may as well be ordering caviar in Paris. If you want to feel like you have elevated your bathroom cleaning experience, Clorox has your back.
Pros:
The wand, storage caddy, and refills all work together in a fantastic harmony. The storage caddy holds all of your refills and the wand. Not to mention, it looks great and fits that minimalist aesthetic. If you just moved into a new place and want to show guests that you have your life together, the Clorox ToiletWand will definitely give the vibe you want.
The cleaning power is great, and should feel familiar to you. If you have ever used Clorox products such as Clorox Disinfecting Wipes, Clorox Performance Bleach, or Clorox Multi Surface Cleaner, you’ll probably feel right at home. It kills most bacteria and viruses, scrubs well, and doesn't have have an overbearing scent. We tried the Fresh Scent, but Rainforest Rush is another option. The wand and pads are both fairly stable, and this is an excellent power-cleaning tool.
Cons:
While the cleaning power of the Clorox ToiletWand is great, it’s more akin to a scrub brush than a dedicated cleaner. We know it cleans well, but they didn’t nail it on the overall experience. Your water doesn’t change colors, and your bathroom doesn’t smell fantastic (this might be a pro for you - the smell is good, just weak). We want to SEE and FEEL that it is cleaning well. This is much more utilitarian.
With a premium product comes a premium price tag. The refills are expensive. If you are going to use this regularly, we advise purchasing the 30 Count refill pack, as buying in bulk will save you quite a bit. The refills will also need to be thrown in the trash after use, as they cannot be flushed.
Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Brush Starter Kit Review
This thing makes your bathroom smell fantastic. Seriously, we couldn’t believe it. We had tested the Clorox ToiletWand first, and while it cleaned well, it didn’t provide the amazing scent that the Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Brush did. We didn't realize this was something we were missing out on until after we tried this.
Pros:
Once we got past the heavenly citrus scent, we had to evaluate the actual cleaning power. The Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Brush is designed to be a totally different experience than its Clorox competition.
The cleaning pads are meant to be flushed. This means that the pads are much more water absorbent and begin to fall apart similar to toilet paper. We still elected to throw away the pad afterwards, as we like to be gentle on our pipes, but we could see this being a major benefit for keeping your cleaning self-contained.
It really felt like the Scrubbing Bubbles were working, and our toilet looked sparkly clean after. If pure cleaning power is the concern, this Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Brush surpasses other cleaning options. Not to mention, Scrubbing Bubbles also sells heavy-duty cleaning pads, which we will probably be trying soon.
We also love the economics of the Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Brush. The refills are much cheaper than the Clorox ToiletWand. In fact, we found them more frugal than purchasing toilet cleaning gel or automatic toilet bowl cleaners. If you clean your toilet bowl extremely commonly, you will be a huge fan of the Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Brush.
Cons:
The Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Brush stand is ugly and flimsy. It doesn’t provide a great experience when it feels like a light breeze can knock it over, and it certainly isn’t going to spruce up your bathroom. We may advise ditching the stand totally, and instead grabbing a Command Hook to hang up the Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Brush. We're big fans of 3M products here at Help Me Pick. You can see our before and after photo below. It's still not great, but it's much better.
Speaking of how bad the stand is… It doesn’t hold your cleaning pads for you. This means that you will have to keep them nearby in a drawer or other storage solution. It isn’t a huge deal, but definitely feels worse than the Clorox storage caddy that holds everything you need in one convenient space.
While the cleaning experience was great, we simultaneously love and hate the flushable toilet cleaning pads. It is extremely convenient that they are flushable and we could see this being important if you want to keep your toilet cleaning in your toilet. However, the pads also fall apart extremely easily. You won’t be cleaning more than one toilet, or hardcore scrubbing a toilet that may have gone too long without a cleaning. The pads simply fall apart too fast.
Is the Clorox ToiletWand or the Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Brush Better?
While both the Clorox ToiletWand and the Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Brush have a lot going for them, there can only be one true winner. If you were only going to purchase one toilet wand, we would go with the Clorox ToiletWand. It’s a little more expensive, both in up-front cost and the refill cost, but it’s just a better experience. While the cleaning power may be slightly worse, every other aspect is better. It’s hard to comprehend how nice it is to have the storage caddy hold everything all at once. Not only does the Clorox ToiletWand clean well, it also reduces the clutter of what would otherwise have to be multiple products.
If you liked learning how to upgrade your toilet bowl cleaning, you’ll probably also enjoy upgrading your kitchen sink cleaning. Check out The BEST Foaming Garbage Disposal Cleaner on Amazon.