So I got a drop of toilet bowl cleaner on the toilet seat, and it sat there for a while. It has now created a stain of it’s own, a yellowish/pink stain that is hard to miss.
Attempts to clean this with the same cleaner that caused it have not been successful. Is there anything I can do with this stain?
Scrub harder. And longer. Really. 
It’s my experience that lime stone tends to build up in a thin layer, even if you clean regularly, and that would be what has ‘trapped’ the colouring. You could try to get rid of the lime stone by covering it with paper towels soaked with a stronger acid than the one inb the toilet cleaner, but vigorous scrubbing can help a lot.
Now if anyone could tell me what to do about that ‘line’ of lime stone at water level that I simply cannot get rid of, I’d be grateful. And no scrubbing with pumice, please. Scratches the porcelain. Also tried a 30% solution of “salt acid” (don’t know what this is called in English, but it’s pretty aggressive) to no avail.
Ea_calendula: Lime-away (or CLR or other lime-focused product) has helped me with that water-level stain in the past. I tried lime-away on this current stain and nothing happened.
My main issue is that it looks depressingly like a urine stain. Seriously people! This stain was made by a cleaning product!
New toilet seats are about $10 at the Home Depot…
Not this particular seat- I am looking at $40 almost.
And they are non-returnable, so make sure you get the correct size/color on your first try.
My brother just moved into a new house, and his wife made him replace all the seats, as she always does. He was surprised to realize that he has five thrones now and only two users, as his son is in college.
I’d try bleach. Soak a piece of TP in bleach and set it on the spot for a while. It might be wise to test this procedure on the underside of the toilet seat first.
If the bleach doesn’t work, ammonia might.
Have you tried one of those “magic eraser” cleaning pads?
I swear, if they made those things from crushed baby seals, I’d still buy them. I got black permanent ink off a white wall with one of those.
Warning! Do not mix bleach and ammonia unless you really like the inside of coffins.
Isn’t is possible the cleaner has actually ruined the surface of the seat, so that further attempts cleaning are useless?
What was the original cleaner?
If it was a toilet bowl cleaner, it may have really damaged the seat; depends on what the seat is made of and what the cleaner was. But bowl cleaners are strong stuff and not meant to be used on a regular plastic seat–it might have eaten into it.
It may have bleached the color out too, thus no amount of scrubbing will help.
I would agree with the above, that you have probably chemically altered the surface of your seat. I don’t know what your seat is made of, or what cleaner you used otherwise I might be able to come up with something, but it is not likely. My guess is that the only way to eliminate the stain will be to abrasively remove it.
Toilet bowl cleaners often contain alpha hydroxy aciids or thioglycolic acid. These are both reducing agents, which is why bleach, an oxidizing agent, is a good bet to remove the stain.
That’s interesting. I just use bleach.
I’m still trying to play with the mechanism to make them bothe reducing agents. Thiols by nature are somewhat reducing, but alpha-hydruxy acids? I can see the potential to decarboxylate but thats an 8-electron cycle so not likely. Besides, I bet its basic, so the acid would be deprotonated. Tell me what I’m missing.
Oh no i see. It releases formaldehyde or the thiol equivalent. Possibly it doesn’t release it literally or it would smell like formaldehyde, but from there I get reducing.
If your toliet bowl cleaner has left a stain, I’d recommend a good toilet bowl cleaner cleaner. If that leaves a stain, you may need a toilet bowl cleaner cleaner cleaner.
Likelyhood depends on what other goo they’ve got mixed in with the acid, and what’s in the plastic of the toilet seat that’s changing color. Lots of things catalyze decarboxylation of alpha hydroxy acids.
Most toilet bowl cleaners I’ve come across are acidic. Heck, the pink stain might just be an acid indicator type reaction in the surface of the plastic, in which case a soak in any base, eg bleach or ammonia, would fix the problem.
Can I just say that posts 14 through 18 are a pretty fine encapsulation of why I love this big beautiful board?
My toilet seat and cleaner are not with me but I will report back. I’ll also try bleach, which had not occurred to me.
Update- I used Clorox bowl cleaner with bleach, which lists an active ingredient of Sodium Hypochlorite (2.4%) and also (obviously) contains bleach.
I tried soaking the stain in bleach, which seemed to help somewhat. Then I tried scrubbing with a magic eraser (those things are scary). This got most of the stain off, but I did damage the surface of the seat a bit in the process. However, it looks much better than it did before. I deem it acceptable.
Thanks for the help, and go easy on those magic erasers, folks. I think if I applied any more pressure I’d be in China.