Holy Crap, It Worked!

All those who love cleaning their shower, raise your hand!  I'm assuming none of you shot your hand enthusiastically into the air which means you're like me.  Cleaning the shower is not a task you enjoy.  And when I don't enjoy something, guess what?  I don't do it that often (big surprise).  Therefore, our shower does not get cleaned all that often which leads to this:

I know...so gross.  And believe me, I have tried everything to get rid of that nasty ring around the shower.  The scrubbing bubbles I had clearly did not actually scrub like their animated counterparts on TV.  Ka-boom was more like a Ka-blah.  Tilex, Pinesol, Comet...nothing worked! 
Then last week I saw this pin that claimed with some vingar and some Dawn, your soap scum would be gone! (haha I totally rhymed and I didn't mean to).  Yes the blogger had before and after pictures but I still was kinda skeptical.  I've had other pins disappoint me.  But today I thought I'd give it a try.  Now the blogger wasn't very specific in her directions so I just kinda eyeballed how much to use of each.  I liberally  sprayed it on all the gunky spots  in the shower, set the timer and waited.  I was so excited to see if this worked that I actually cleaned other parts of my house while I was waiting (did I just say I was excited about cleaning?  what is wrong with me?!?)
While I was waiting I did look at the post again and realized she did link to the original blog post she had gotten the idea from (you do see what we're doing here.....creating a blog post link chain of the same idea) so I went to that blog that had more specific directions.  The girl on there heated her vinegar first.  Well, crap I didn't do that.  She also left it on for 2 hours, not one.  Well I wasn't going to do that either.  So when the timer went off, I was quite worried that maybe it wouldn't work after all since I had not followed the original directions.  Well here is the after:

Oh yes, I supersized that picture so you could see that all the nastiness is gone!  There are a few specks that are still kinda stuck and a spot on one of the shelves that needs some tougher elbow grease but for the most part, all of the grime wiped away easily with a wet rag.  Then I ran the shower on super hot for a few minutes to wash down all of the vinegar/Dawn solution. 
So how can you make this magic happen in your house?

What you'll need:
one spray bottle
vinegar (apparently there is cleaning vinegar at Wal-mart near the multipurpose cleaners, I just used regular distilled white vinegar)
Dawn (original blue bottle)

What you do:
You'll want to mix equal parts vinegar and Dawn, so that's a 1 to 1 ratio.  If you're bad with ratios, that means if you use 1 cup of Dawn, use 1 cup of vinegar.  But, before you mix them heat the vinegar first. I honestly don't know if you absolutely have to do this (as it worked for me when I didn't heat it) but it might be more powerful if you do (again, I don't know.  I'm not a chemistry person).  Put your vinegar and Dawn in a spray bottle and shake gently to mix them.
Spray whatever you want to get clean.  I used a LOT (as in almost the whole spray bottle) to do the shower but mine was pretty grimy (remember?  Scroll up if you don't). Set your timer for an hour.  If you think your tub/shower is worse than mine then maybe set your timer for 2 hours.
When the timer goes off, use a wet rag to wipe (and scrub a bit) the grime away.  Rinse area with hot water.  Stand back and admire your clean tub! (and then vow to never let it get that dirty again)
I will warn you that you will probably want to stay out of the bathroom while you're letting the solution soak because it stinks to high heaven.  But once you rinse all of the solution away, the smell will disappear too.