shower curtain, need a better system

I just broke down and bought a new plastic shower curtain, but it really bugs me. I don't want to be a part of any system that requires me to buy a sheet of plastic every so often and throw the old one away.

Yet, we are not up for a new bathroom remodel and showers in a tub require protection. I'm going to do my best to keep this one free from mildew and slime, so I have a while to figure this out. I don't project a lot of cash even then though.

So. What is the best answer for keeping the shower water off the floor? My parents had a shower in their old house that had a door instead of a curtain rod, but the trouble with that was eventually it broke and they had to throw away the whole shebang.

Ideally, I think, a tiled design with careful attention to drainage and wall placement. But what to do about the traditional bathtub shower unit?

How long do you do with a shower curtain? The last time I had to replace mine was more than 5 years ago. If you have problems with slime and mildew then the problem probably isn't the curtain but the (lack of)ventilation.

That's a good point. There is a problem with ventilation. The house is sort of a "homemade" house and the bathroom has terrible ventilation. We have not been able to figure out a way to fix that, because of the shape of the room and where it is placed in the post and beams.

Still, this curtain lasted about 4 years. I don't even want to throw one away every 5 years though!

You can use a fabric one instead, just wash it once a month with oxyclean to kill any mildew that's starting to grow (in with your laundry). I hated buying plastic too so that's what I do.

Also get a squeegie and use that on the walls and tub to get as much water as possible down the drain so there's not as much lingering to make the air humid.

The squeegee idea is great, I don't know why I didn't think of that! Can I get the kids to do it, I wonder?...

Will a fabric one keep water off the floor, even when splashy preteens are showering? I was assuming they wouldn't.

Matu Collins wrote:That's a good point. There is a problem with ventilation. The house is sort of a "homemade" house and the bathroom has terrible ventilation. We have not been able to figure out a way to fix that, because of the shape of the room and where it is placed in the post and beams.

Still, this curtain lasted about 4 years. I don't even want to throw one away every 5 years though!

Exhaust fan. Even if you vent it up into an attic space, the large attic volume (and air exchange there) will take care of the humidity. If you can figure a way with an exhaust fan and a piece of flexible conduit to vent it to the outside, even better. An exhaust fan doesn't need to be a big energy investment, you only need to have it on when you are generating steam, like with a hot shower. If you want to make it all solar, you can even do that, since you can find 12v exhaust fans that are made for boat use. Put a solar panel on the roof, run a wire down to the exhaust fan, and ventilation problem is solved.

That's the trouble with the homemade house. We have tried and tried to figure out a way to get an exhaust fan into the room but there is no way to fit it, either to the outside or to another part of the house. I mean, there may be an answer, but none of the heads we've put together have found it yet.

Even with an exhaust fan, though, a plastic curtain won't last forever.

I too dislike my plastic shower curtain and looking for a long lasting green alliterative. I think the next curtain purchase will be one made of a high quality hemp fabric. Hopefully a sheer, light colored, hemp fabric that is not completely opaque. Anyone using hemp fabric shower curtain? If so please post a link to your favorite supplier. Thanks

Matu...I am glad you asked this question.
Renate...I have just put a squeegee in our shower and will follow my urge to make a shower curtain from curtains from the thrift store...I use them for lots of other things.
Our shower/bath has NO toilet in the room...it gets sun and has a window open almost year round but I have been wantng to get away from the plastic shower curtain too.

Can you snake some dryer vent hose into the bathroom? This marine blower fan is 4" in diameter and designed to push air through a long tube. There's got to be a way to get a 4" pipe through a wall to the outside.

What Renate said also works; if one fabric one doesn't keep water off the floor, try two, one hanging on the inside of the tub and one on the outside.

The trouble is that the wall to the outside is very small and taken up by support beams and window. The window opens of course but in New England it's only useful to have it open for part of the year.

I like the repurposed curtains idea. I have a friend who makes repurposed clothing, maybe there's a market for this... Someone's got to do something with the vast sea of cloth discarded by our weird global clothing system...

Fabric curtains do keep water off the floor - it hits the curtain and then runs down. You want something thin and not too absorbent, so it dries quickly and doesn't get so heavy that it pulls down your curtain rod.

Mat Collins : So how are you going to recycle the old plastic ! If kept out of the sun it should still have some life ! I too vote for a Squeegee, in High humidity areas like Florida
this is a very common answer. If you have a cast iron or steel tub you can stash some refrigerator magnets in your tub area, and use them to Take the slack out of the shower
curtains that will try to stick to each other ! This will allow the water to drain off of the curtain in sheets, with or without the sqweegee, which is not kid proof ! Big Al

Rick Roman wrote:I too dislike my plastic shower curtain and looking for a long lasting green alliterative. I think the next curtain purchase will be one made of a high quality hemp fabric. Hopefully a sheer, light colored, hemp fabric that is not completely opaque. Anyone using hemp fabric shower curtain? If so please post a link to your favorite supplier. Thanks

When I was weaving a lot with hemp a friend asked me to weave a shower curtain...but no way could I have made it for anywhere close to the $100 of the commercial one. At the time I suggested she check out Ecolution's hemp yardages...really beautful fabric...all different weights. I don't know who is a distributer for them anymore though.

Thanks Judith! I'm rethinking the hemp curtain after your brilliant suggestion of recycling window curtains.

For what it's worth, I bought two microfiber cloth shower curtains from Walmart. Once a month I replace the used one with a fresh clean one, laundering the one i took down. Works for me. I live in a very humid area and have a very airy bathroom 24 hours a day, and the plastic shower curtains still molded up really fast. Drove me nuts. But the microfiber ones, washing them often, are fine. And they keep all the water inside the shower stall.

...Su Ba
www.kaufarmer.blogspot.com

I will use the old shower curtain for the roof of a cold frame this fall/winter. I am thinking of fixing it over a couple of straw bales for a season extender.

Still, it won't last more than one season.

I love a good plastic 5 gallon bucket as much as the next gal, but I wish to eliminate as much plastic junk as possible from all my systems.

John Elliott wrote: Exhaust fan. Even if you vent it up into an attic space, the large attic volume (and air exchange there) will take care of the humidity.

Yes, but be careful. I've seen lots of these turn moldy and rotten. If you've got a steep roof so that the attic has lots of open area for the vent to blow into... AND it really does exchange lots of air (meaning the roof vents are numerous enough and installed right)... then it can work fine.

But if the bathroom vent blows into a corner, or the roof is low above the bathroom (it often is, because the bathroom is often on an outside wall where the roof slopes down), then the wet air blows right onto the wood and condenses during the cool/cold parts of the year. After a few years- more or less depending on your family's showering habits- the roof framing has been wet every day and it rots. Or if the attic space is small and doesn't exchange much air, but you're not blowing the air right onto one spot, then sometimes the humidity condenses all over the cold underside of the roof and you get a layer of mold everywhere instead of localized. Either way, undesirable.

Venting the bathroom air into the attic CAN be ok, but tread carefully!

For us it's moot, no attic.

Summers are very moldy here. Our shoes grow fur in the closets.

Matu, I can empathize! I moved to the tropics and everything made of leather grew fur! We built our house with conventional cabinets, closets, and drawers and instantly owned lots of moldy stuff. We're getting ready to re-do the bathroom and are seriously considering things like ...outdoor shower...removing one wall of the bathroom and replacing it with open gridwork of some kind. People resort to that sort of thing in my area.

...Su Ba
www.kaufarmer.blogspot.com

That is the answer for the summer, Su Ba! I am planning to invest some capital in an outdoor shower when some capital comes along. I have some ipe decking waiting to be made into something better than a shower curtain.

Where I live in Matunuck, Rhode Island, we can have very hot humid summers and frozen solid winters, so the outdoor option won't work all year but it could cut down on mildew and moisture by a lot. We have seven people in our family getting clean in this bathroom, and if you add wwoofers to that in the summer tropical season...

Then you DEFINITELY want an outdoor shower!!

I am planning on one when capital comes along, too.

Outdoor showers are wonderful...we've always had one until we moved to a more 'civilized' house. If you are isolated enough and have a good dog to let you know if someone is coming you don't ned much but a rock to stand on so your feet don't get muddy and a bucket of water to dip out of. We shower with unheated water all summer anyway.

We are testing our cloth shower curtain...I had a twill cotton curtain that fit perfectly but I think it is a little too heavy and cotton too absorbant...it sheds water just fine but the hem is really soaked. This might be a good use for a polyester blend or a nice linen that would shed water better without absorbing so much.

Matu Collins wrote:The trouble is that the wall to the outside is very small and taken up by support beams and window.  The window opens of course but in New England it's only useful to have it open for part of the year.

I like the repurposed curtains idea.  I have a friend who makes repurposed clothing, maybe there's a market for this... Someone's got to do something with the vast sea of cloth discarded by our weird global clothing system...

I bet you could iron wax into the fabric like they do for food wraps.  I don't know if you could then wash it, though. Probably in cold water.  I wonder if something like oilcloth would work...just "spitballing" here.

When I was in college the dorm shower curtains were made of canvas.

I feel any kind of heavy cloth will work.  

I regularly wash my shower curtains, even the plastic ones.

Matu Collins wrote:I just broke down and bought a new plastic shower curtain, but it really bugs me

I used to work for a real estate flipper. He had bought one house that he was having trouble selling because the drainage around the property was bad and it kept getting mold up the walls. I decided to rent it from him because I knew how to keep that from happening. I wonder if this would work for you? I cleaned the mold off and then I made a solution of baking soda and water and painted it on the walls. It didn’t show because the walls were white. Then I put an air purifier in the house. The one I had included an ozone generator. There’s all sorts of hysteria nowadays about ozone generators, but I lived there for two years and all it did was keep mold from growing in the house. We never felt sick or got headaches or anything like that.
When I decided to move out, I took out the air purifier. Within a week or two, the mold was growing back. But it wasn’t as bad as before, because of the baking soda paint. I don’t know why baking soda retards or eliminates mold growth. I’m not a chemist. But anyway, I was thinking you could make up a solution of baking soda and water and put it in a spray bottle because spraying the curtain and shower area after showers is going to be easier than squeegeeing. Maybe if you got a small air purifier for the bathroom, it would eliminate the need to punch a hole through the ceiling for a vent fan. It’s not the moisture itself that is the problem, it’s the environment it creates for mold growth. Between the air purifier and the baking soda water, you should be good.
One more suggestion. Plastic shower curtain curtains sometimes need replacing just because they tear or get tattered. I just watched a YouTube video where this guy mixed a cup of mineral oil with a pound of paraffin and melted it all together. Then he applied it to a piece of fabric using an old iron and putting a mat of aluminum foil underneath it to keep wax from getting all over the place. That fabric was completely waterproof and much more sturdy than a plastic shower curtain. Plus you could use any fabric you want and end up with a very pretty and unique shower curtain.

I just purchased a linen shower curtain.  Linen is less susceptible to mildew, and easy to wash.  It does keep the water in, no splashes on the floor.

I recently washed my $15 plastic shower curtain because it was getting mouldy. Unlike previous ones I had, this one has a smooth surface, not a finely textured one. The mould (I'm using the British/Canadian spelling for this word BTW) came off easily with oxyclean and a brush.

For the other, newly renovated bathroom I bought a cloth curtain for $20 with a nice pattern on it. It's polyester.

Don't use cotton because it will take forever to dry out and will get mouldy fast. It needs to be quick-drying. If you're making a curtain out of second hand materials, make sure there's no cotton in them.

I buy plastic shower curtains for a buck from Dollar Tree (well, now $1.25), replace them every couple of years, and use the old one to line wooden seed trays or cover something.

I also, in lieu of a squeegie,  wipe down the shower curtain, tub, surround, and ceiling after every shower with a washcloth that I ring out several times until everything is as close to dry as I can get it, so nothing molds or mildews even without turning on the vent fan, and the shower is clean for the next time I use it.

Yep, that takes a couple of minutes to do, but by that time my body has usually air-dried except for the crevices, so I can dry off with a hand towel rather than a bath towel, which in turn saves me a lot of laundry volume.  Seven bath towels has to be a load of laundry a day all by themselves.

I volunteered at a gym once weekly for my membership for about a year. During that time, I saved a few boxes of quite clean commercial grade shower curtains and used them all for a lean-to greenhouse made entirely out of scrap if you don't count the screws. Eventually those shower curtains were replaced and the ripped ones taped with red house wrap tape if not too badly ripped, and reused one more time as trash bags.
I have a material shower curtain that's over 10 years old, faded but still in tact.
I have a ton of stinging nettles and hope this year I will have an opportunity to try making fabric from them.

I only buy woven shower curtains, and aim the shower spray slightly (very slightly) toward the shower wall. I do not have a bathtub.
The shower curtain gets wet, but as long as the spray isn’t directly on it, the water just seeps down to the shower floor instead of ending up on the bathroom floor.

I throw it in the washer every now and then.

They last for years. I bought the one I’m using almost 16 years ago for $14 and it still looks good. Unfortunately it’s synthetic (polyester),  it it’s better than plastic.

Having recently moved into a house with 2 bathrooms,  I had to buy a second one. That one is linen. Cost a little more. Same system.

Both dry within a few hours, faster when the windows are open or when the heat is on.

Woven shower curtains cost more than plastic ones. But they last forever. And they are scertainly cheaper than having glass shower doors installed, and much, much easier to clean.

I think most people use these decoratively, with a plastic liner behind it.
I skip the plastic.
Works just fine.

One thing I would say is that when you open the curtain to get out, don't leave it all pushed together.  I would leave an opening of 6-12 inches (pull the curtain almost closed again) so that air can circulate inside the box, but also allow air to pass through any gentle folds of fabric. If the fabric is bunched up, it will take much longer for the fabric to dry, allowing mold to set up.

I have a cheap (about $2, I think) clear plastic shower curtain that I bought a long time ago. (I don't remember exactly, but before covid.) The best way I've found to keep it nice is to throw it into the wash with the bath towels. I don't have a big mold problem and wash it only about every 3-4 months, but I would think that washing it every week would keep the mold away. Some baking soda on the wash would help, too. And white vinegar is a good replacement for softener in the rinse water, making towels soft without softener buildup and helping with the shower curtain, too.

But I really, really like the waxed fabric idea. Are they machine washable?

I'm in the tropics.  I usually bathe outside, watering the plants at the same time, with a bucket of cold water and a pot to scoop and dump.  During cooler times of the year, I bathe in the afternoon or just after sunset, or it gets too chilly for me later.  Saves a lot of energy in unneeded water heating, and a lot of water, too.

If I want it warm/hot, I can either bathe earlier and put the bucket of water out in the sun, or use a garden hose that's been sitting in the sun, or heat up the water on the stove, or use hot tap water.

My surround is a flimsy PVC frame with some screws for stability,  with thrift shop sheets as barriers (only on two sides; the side of the house and the back yard full of vegetation provide enough screening privacy on the other two sides.)

Yes, the sheets get mildewed over time, but if they are 100% cotton, they can be thrown into the compost. Sometimes I cut off the bottom mildewed portion, then cut the top into smaller rags to wipe up grease on dishes and pots before washing them.  I throw the rags away and save soap, water, and time washing dishes that are less dirty or greasy.

I stab the sheet with a knife or cut a notch with scissors to make holes for shower curtain rings.  I have some "rings" that are just scrap short lengths of indoor electrical wire (copper, with or without the plastic sheathing intact.)  The copper doesn't rust.  I also have some old plastic rings I reused.

Sheets are cheap, or you can use ones from your house that are too old or in poor condition.

I do NOT miss having to clean the bathroom, squeegee a surround, or, like a friend used to do, bring a fan into the room on a chair for 20 minutes, to dry it out.  Nor do I miss the plumbing headaches and bills with leaks, replacing stems or o-rings, or needing to re-do the entire fixture because they no longer sell parts for your old one.

I change the sheets after a loooooooooooong time.  The only other maintenance has been to sometimes scrub some moss off the stone wall next to the area, or re-level the pavers if necessary, or tie the legs to driven-in pipes for stability.  My abilities are low, so anyone can do this version!    And it's never collapsed or blown away in a storm.

I still chuckle when a friend wanted to come over to see my "outdoor shower."  Later, when I stayed at her home, which looked like the June cover for House Beautiful magazine, I realized the image she had in her head was probably:  woven palm frond surrounds and a fancy rainshower head, bamboo and birds of paradise landscaping and lush jungle vegetation, including monstera winding up the gargantuan banyan trees, with birds chirping as you rinse off after a naked plunge in the pool or ocean.

I can imagine her horror as she saw my ghetto "outdoor shower," with scrap broken concrete paver chunks for a floor, mosquitoes, and leaves I needed to kick aside, after the chickens had been scratching through there, looking for bugs!  hahahaha

But like a true friend, she said nothing as I pointed out that the graywater watered the papaya, banana, katuk, ong choy (kangkung, water spinach), ginger, and tropical sunflower, but as I finished, she commented, "Wow, looks like you have a very thorough setup here!"

After I had arrived at her house and saw HER place (albeit without any "outdoor shower"...so there!), I said, "Oh sh!t, I would have never let you see mine, had I known how nice your place is!"

We just had a huge storm over the weekend, and many people were without power for days.  I think her area was hard hit, because I haven't had a response to my emails.  She's not the type to save rainwater, canned anything, or have a backup water filter, rocket and butane stoves, or other preparedness items.

But she lives in a rural area on another island, so I know the people there will be fine.  Her neighbor has a garden, and she's friendly with her sister, so they'd help each other

But she got an example, when she came to my place, of what some people can and DO do, to live in ways more attuned to Nature, and more adaptable when things like hurricanes happen.  Maybe now she'll start to put in her own "outdoor shower"...?

To reiterate some of these good ideas, please use a microfiber or similar material for the curtain.  All cotton or waxed fabric? Hmm, not so much.  Cotton sheets hold the moisture for too long, unless you live in an arid environment. Waxing fabric is a long shot, it creates a stiff product which will be hard to wash.
Our fabric curtain is going on ten years,  quite inexpensive,  has not mildewed despite our small bathroom in the sultry humid South.  

I used to wash my inner plastic shower curtain with a couple towels in the washing machine on the casuals or delicates cycle.  Now I have one that I think is nylon or polyester or something? It came with the house.  It feels like fabric but is definitely not a natural fiber.   With this one I still just throw it in the wash when it starts to look gross, sometimes with a little bleach if it getting mildewy, and I'll wash it with any other towels or cleaning cloths that could use a little bleaching.

Rico Loma wrote:. Waxing fabric is a long shot, it creates a stiff product which will be hard to wash.  

If you wax Fabric using all wax, you are right. However, if you melt 1 pound of paraffin with one cup of mineral oil, you will get a soft flexible fabric that is waterproof. It can be washed and cold water and hung to dry.

I stay away from synthetic fabrics as much as possible because I see the synthetic rope inside my clothesline degrades to teeny tiny fibers that go airborne every time it moves.

That makes me think I'm contributing to putting more microplastics into the environment, AND I'm likely breathing them in, increasing my toxic burden of microplastics, further reducing my health, and the health of the animals that share my space.

The neighbor's house on fire the other night reminded me of the horribly acrid, toxic fumes released when plastics burn.

So I'd much rather use a cotton sheet and throw it into the compost bin, or "away" (where it will get burned to produce electricity, or buried to degrade back to reusable natural products), and get another, more often, than using a synthetic, which doesn't "go away" to some mythical place at the end of its life.

I'm trying to mimic the systems of Nature, which are cyclical (inputs get used; breaks down, creating more inputs for the cycle to repeat)...versus "man-"--and at this point, that definition is at question, eh? wink, wink--  -made linear systems (resource is extracted; input is created by combining extracted products, creating toxic byproducts, causing further ecological destruction and downstream unintended negative consequences for Nature and life; resource is used, again creating toxic byproducts and effects; resource must be created once again by toxic extraction from, etc.)

Surely we haven't reached this horrid state of affairs by just one person buying a synthetic shower curtain?!  No.  But when synthetics eventually become the norm, the result is what you see around us now--collapse of non-sustainable systems, with accompanying ecological wastelands, physical health deterioration, economic crash, instability.

Because it's all connected.  And driven toward ends that continue to profit the top of the pyramid, while the bottom of the pyramid suffers.

I'd be willing to bet that using one thrift store or old bed sheet uses less water and detergent and fragrance, too, since it's "washed" every time someone bathes.  That's another permaculture principle in action:  use a resource multiple times before it leaves your property.  Like every drop of water being funneled through multiple earthworks and growing systems.

I'm basically lazy (so I don't bother to wash it) and do not like to encourage continuation of the current system, which values form over function, overconsumption, and a careless attitude toward resources, their production, and disposal.  Who profits from the current system, and who loses?  I'd like that to reverse...even if my one person's actions(deemed ridiculous or crazy by some) have just an infinitesimally small effect.

Again, multiply that one effect times hundreds, thousands, millions--and at some point, a tipping point is reached, and things pivot and go in the other direction.

I'm assuming most people on this forum believe that is not only possible, but a worthy and lofty goal to aim for, and since we cannot control the top of the pyramid, we can only change our individual actions.  So it is there that I begin.

Alina Green wrote:I stay away from synthetic fabrics as much as possible because I see the synthetic rope inside my clothesline degrades to teeny tiny fibers that go airborne every time it moves.

You can waterproof a cotton fabric by melting 1 lb of paraffin with 1 cup of mineral oil and ironing it into cotton with an old iron.
Wash in cold water, hang dry. Lasts for years.