1 out of 5 leaves
Tea Tree Oil is an essential oil extracted from the Melaleuca tree that grows in Australia. It has demonstrated anti-microbial properties that make it a great weapon in the naturophile’s cleaning and home health care arsenal. It has a very strong, medicinal odor, and can be used sparingly for a desired effect. Some have recommended using a solution of tea tree oil and water to kill mold and mildew. But does this work? Can tea tree oil be an effective natural tool against mold and mildew?
The Good
- Better for you – all natural essential oils are safer to use around you, your family and your pets
- Better for the Earth – because all cleaners eventually end up in the waste stream, better for it to be a natural substance washing out to sea
- Saves Money – tea tree oil is pretty cheap on the essential oil spectrum, and a mixture of oil and water for treating mold costs much less than commercial mildew busters
The Bad
- Must leave solution on mold to treat
- Either it doesn’t work, or there is no indication mold or mildew has been killed
- Does not remove the mildew staining – in facts makes remaining mold more difficult to remove
My Experience
The bathroom in our rental is old and has poor circulation. We try to keep the window open as much as we can, but still mildew tends to crop up in the corners now and then. So I was annoyed, but not terribly surprised recently when I moved my shampoo bottle away from the wall and saw this:
- Yuck! Who invited you?
Lucky for me, I had just pinned a post from one of my favorite blogs about Tips for Treating Household Mold and Mildew Naturally. Besides offering some tips for preventing mold, the author offered a handful of natural solutions to handling mold once it shows up. The number one, most effective, natural solution offered was tea tree oil: 1 teaspoon of this essential oil plus 1 cup of water was recommended. You combine, shake well, and apply to the affected spot. The post included specific instructions to not rinse once applied.
I quickly mixed up a bottle of tea tree oil mold killer
- 1 tsp tea tree oil + 1 cup water = mold zapper
I gave the mildewy spot a good soaking before bed, and let it sit, with no rinsing. The next morning, when I took my shower, I checked on the spot and it looked exactly the same. No change at all. I’m not sure what I expected with the no-rinsing bit, but I couldn’t tell that any damage had been done to the moldy spot at all. Thinking maybe it worked better if the mold was damp, I gave it another good spritzing after my shower and let it sit all day long. At the end of the day again there was no visible change in the spot.
Not to be outdone by a stubborn spot of mold, I carefully q-tipped a few drops of 100% pure tea tree oil onto the spot. I noticed a little bit of the blackness started to run with the drips of oil. I did not rinse off, but again checked on it later that day. Again: No visible change.
Now, maybe the tea tree oil did indeed kill the mold. Unfortunately, as it looked exactly the same, I have no way of knowing if it did or not. Also, it did not remove the mold in any way. So even if it’s dead I still needed to clean it off the wall. Knowing that vinegar is a great tool against mold and mildew, I got out my handy spray bottle of vinegar and did a quick wipe down of the wall and also of another mildewy corner in the tub. Here’s the really disappointing thing: the mildew treated with tea tree oil was harder to remove than the spot that had not been treated. Significantly harder. Like a scrub vs. a quick wipe harder.
So, to sum up: It is impossible to tell if the tea tree oil actually kills the mold. The tea tree oil application does not remove the mold. And removing the mold after tea tree oil application is harder than if you didn’t treat it at all. This, my friends, was a Green Idea Fail.
Have you tried out this method with different results? Do you have other favorite uses for tea tree oil?
Shared at Morris Tribe, Monday Mania, Better Mom Mondays, Homestead Barnhop, One Project at a Time, Titus 2sdays, Living Green, Teach Me Tuesday, Home is Where the Heart Is, Women Living Well, Works for Me Wednesday, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Adorned from Above, Blog Stalking Thursday, A Rural Journal, Simple Lives Thursday, It’s A Keeper Thursday, Your Green Resource, LHITS Linky
I recommend using oil of clove instead of tea tree oil. You use 1/4 teaspoon of clove oil in 1 litre of water. I spray it around my bathroom sink drains, along crevices that are prone to mold and the inside of my window ledges after cleaning them (I only started doing this a few months ago). Oil of clove is supposed to kill and prevent the mold from growing. I don’t actually use it to clean the sink, just spray it afterwards, although I’ve heard others use it to clean it as well. Although mold still grows back, I have found that it is much slower at returning. I’m confident that continued regular use will continue to lengthen the time frame before it returns.
Thanks for the tips, Carol. I’ve never used clove oil before.
I like the white vinegar approach best. I have made some of the vinegar/orange cleaner that you suggested, and spray that on straight. wipe down after 5 min and rinse, then a light application again with no rinse. about 2X per month.
And do you find you get no mold growth, or does it just come back more slowly?
Interesting. I know that tea tree oil is usually great for fungus so it’s interesting that it didn’t affect mildew. Definitely good to know for the future!
I was suprised too!
Interesting! I usually use vinegar as a soak then scrub away with baking soda and elbow grease!
I hate moldy mildew growing in the corners of my tub 
Thanks for linking up again!!!
Good info to know…I’ve read about this method but never tried it. Felt like I should try it! But now I’m glad that I didn’t!
Found you on Home Is Where the Heart Is hop
Thanks so much for sharing with Wednesdays Adorned From Above Link Party. This is great. I didn’t think about using tea tree oil to remove mold, but I’m not going to try it if we don’t know if it works. I will stick with vinegar.
Debi
I feel your pain!
I, too, went out and bought Tea Tree Oil, and tried it on the mold in my bathroom (living in Florida is a great environment for the growth of mold!) and nothing. Tea Tree Oil is not the best smelling stuff either (LOL) I continue in my never-ending search for the a sure-fire natural remedy. sigh….
Thanks Jeanette for this confirmation. I was afraid I might be doing something wrong!
I tried it in my cloth diapers and it caused irritation on my babies’ bottoms.
Ouch! Tea Tree Oil is so strong that you need to be carfeul about how much is applied to the skin.
I’m told, TTO is not recommended for hard surfaces. Its best on wood, Sheetrock, clothes etc.Clean the surface first with white vinegar for stains. apply 1 teaspoon to 1 cup of water, in a spray bottle, shake and spray away don’t rinse. TTO will kill the mold, penetrates the surface, kill the spores and prevent them from returning,
Great information. I generally use a shower spray every day to keep the mold and scum at least at bay or to minimize it until I can clean. Thank you for sharing at RT this week. xo
Dang, I have the same problem & was hoping for a fix. Oh well, thanks for the info. Visiting from Blog Stalking Thursday
Hi Nicole, the tea tree oil didn’t work, but have you tried vinegar? You can read here about how it worked for me!
How disappointing!! I usually scrub off the mildew and then soak the area with vinegar.
My favorite use for tea tree oil is killing toenail fungus. Apply it straight, twice a day, with a cotton swab, all over the affected nail(s) and surrounding cuticle and also on adjacent toes. If starting with pretty serious fungus, add a first step of filing off as much of it as you possibly can (don’t remove so much nail that you draw blood!) with a DISPOSABLE emery board, over the bathtub, then throw away the emery board and wash the powdered fungus down the drain, before beginning the tea tree oil treatment. It works really well.
oooh – great tip. If I had know this several years agao, I may not have had to get my big toenail removed twice!
Sounds like the tea tree oil was too diluted. I’ve heard 1 part tea tree oil to 1 part water. It would be interesting to see if that would work better or not.
I’m confused as to what you were expecting from the TTO. Did you think it would disappear? Killing something is not the same as removing it. I’m not sure of any remedy, natural or chemical that will do both without you actually washing the residue away! Even if you’d sprayed it down with bleach, you would still need to wipe the area to remove the dead mold (you might not be able to see it since it would be bleached – but it’s still there). I would think your best bet would be to clean the area (using vinegar or soda or homemade “soft scrub”) and THEN spray it down to kill any spores you missed. Then a regular spray down of the area to prevent mold from growing would do the trick. I can’t imagine TTO NOT killing the mold (assuming it’s not too diluted), but just like a mouse in a trap – it may be dead but the remains aren’t going anywhere till YOU remove them!
Our rental bathroom has very poor air flow as well our entire ceiling gets covered in mold. I mixed up 1 cup of tea tree oil and 1 tsp of tea tree oil and sprayed it across my ceiling. It does say do not rinse but it does not say do no wipe. The reason it says do not rinse is so the oil can continue to kill the mold and help prevent future mold. I let the mixture sit for 30 seconds or so and wiped it with a dry cloth. The mold came off easily except for a few problem areas needed a little more scrubbing. Letting it sit overnight is probably the reason why it was so hard to scrub off the mixture and dead mold dried to your wall. I found it relatively effortless and I have plenty of oil left to do it many more times. I would say the smell is more of a pine smell (better then the smell of bleach). The tea tree oil was not meant for mildew just mold that is why it did not work on your mildew.
I’m using tea tree oil. I made a website and I’m taking a picture of my toes every week to show people whether it works or not (hopefully it does). It’s at http://teatreefornailfungus.com, and its non-commercial. It’s only been 3 weeks so far so there isn’t much change yet.
Good luck John. I would be interested in seeing if this works…my Hubby has nail fungus BAD, but we can’t afford the pharmaceuticals.
What a cool idea for a site – best of luck! I had a toenail fungus once and the expensive (and liver damaging pharmaceuticals) didn’t work. I had to have the nail completely removed, then treat with an antifungal cream for months while the nail grew back. I hope the tea tree oil works for you!
You are not supposed to rinse because that reapplies moisture which will result in more mold growth. Wipe, not rinse.
Tea tree oil is very effective in killing mold. You however, are not very effective in applying it.
First you clean the mold stains with vinegar. Then you apply (spray) the TTO water and let it work.
Because it is an OIL it will be effective as it will stick to the wall like glue. That is also the reason why you had a hard time removing the stains.
It’s success rate should be measured on how long it takes before the visible stains reappear and not by waiting for the stains to somehow magically disappear.
Thanks for the tips! I may have to try this one out again!
TTO keeps mold away from a spot that was previously prone to mold. It has not bleaching effect, which is what you are waiting for to happen. TTO kills fungus and does a good job at it. Secondly, porous grout is prone to mold. If you apply this on the grout, the surface becomes very resistant to a continued mold/fungal attack.
My process is a little different than yours and have had excellent results that bleach alone could never fix or even vinegar.
I apply 60% TTO to the mold area. Ensure that it is completely covering it and a little more around to ensure no spores nearby will come haunt again. Leave it for about 1 hour to ensue that it gets to the fungus/mold as much as possible. Usually, the mold loses it strong color that I use as an indication for killing. Then I clean the surface with bleach solution (1 part bleach, 2 parts water). I clean the spot thoroughly. If bleach will discolor the surface then I will use vinegar solution (1 part 5% white vinegar with 2 parts water) to clean the surface.
If the surface is porous, I will then dab it with TTO if I know that it will not leave a visible stain for future proofing. Best to do for grout between tiles and that is it.
It works miracles.
Thanks Jenna. I may have to try this one again!
I want to second Jenna’s post. I’m allergic to mold and I have a summer cottage on a lake, so mold-control is a constant battle! I have tried everything, and Tea Tree oil is definitely my favorite tool in the anti-mold arsenal. I have used it on walls, furniture and clothing with spectacular success; It definitely kills the mold, and eradicates the mold smell. However, it does NOT remove mold stains.
If you have clothing or other textiles that get a mildew smell, just soak them in water with a little TTO, and then wash them. Mildew gone. I love the stuff!