Cleaning the bathtub. It’s a chore that looms large, usually because in any bathroom, the tub itself looms large. It also seems to require a lot of scrubbing and leaning over and generally contorting yourself into a few strange positions. While cleaning the bathtub will never be totally painless, there are some tricks you can use to make it easier to clean and to keep it shiny for much longer. Before you start to clean, you need to know what type of finish your tub has.