Well water, soap, and age had left a permanent fog on the shower doors. There was also a cruddy hard substance at the bottoms of each door. Nothing would remove this cement-like crud. Nothing would remove the fog. As a last ditch effort before purchasing new doors I tried something I've not found anyone mention.
First I removed the doors to the yard and leaned them up against a wall. I sprayed them with WD40 and let em sit. An hour later I rinsed. There was a gooey fatty substance on the glass now. But the cement crud was releasing it's hold. With help of a razor blade I got it off.
Now I needed to deal with the goo on the glass. You must have gloves for this step. I laid down the door on the tailgate of my truck. I took liquid Cascade dishwasher detergent and a 000 piece of steel wool (non-soap kind). I added generous amounts of Cascade to the glass and scrubbed. The soap will turn yucky the more you scrub. I added a little water as needed. I let it sit for about 3 minutes then I rinsed and turned over the doors repeating the process. As they dried I could now see what I had missed so I repeated the process and armed with the razor blade was able to get the remaining stuck on crud on the edges off.
They look beautiful. I saved myself the cost of new doors. It probably cost me five dollars all together in product and took a couple hours of work. It was well worth the effort.
By Jeannie from New Mexico
Some people have good results removing soap scum from shower doors with baby oil. Applying a light coat after cleaning will help prevent future buildup for a time. This is a page about using baby oil for cleaning shower doors.
Sometimes a household cleaner can leave a streaky, cloudy residue or appearance on the area cleaned. You may need to go back and clean it again using a different method or product.
Glass shower doors can get soap scum build up pretty easily and be difficult to clean. This is a page about cleaning between glass shower doors.
The texture of dryer sheets is helpful in cleaning shower doors; used ones work as well as new. This is a page about use dryer sheets to clean shower doors.
This is a page about cleaning water spots on shower doors. Hard water can leave spots on your glass shower doors that are difficult and time consuming to remove.
This is a page about cleaning stubborn shower doors. Soap scum and hard water marks can make your shower doors a chore to clean.