How to Choose a Shower Curtain

A shower curtain is the cheapest thing in your bathroom that’s doing the hardest job: keeping water off your floor. Pick the wrong material or the wrong size and you’ll be mopping puddles, fighting mildew, and re-buying in six months—so it’s worth getting right the first time.

Curtain or liner—or both?

The single most useful thing to understand: an outer curtain and an inner liner are two different parts. The curtain is the good-looking fabric panel that hangs on the room side. The liner is the waterproof sheet that hangs inside the tub and takes the direct spray. Most people run both, and that’s the setup we recommend—you get the look you want on the outside and a cheap, replaceable, wipe-clean barrier on the inside.

You can skip the liner if your curtain itself is fully waterproof (a solid vinyl or PEVA panel), but then your only water barrier is also the thing you look at every day, and it’ll show soap scum and mildew fast. Browse full curtains and coordinating shower curtains first, then add a liner to match your tub width.

Materials, decoded

Material is where the money and the maintenance live. Here’s how the common ones actually behave.

Tip: if the plastic-y chemical smell bothers you, avoid PVC vinyl and choose PEVA/EVA or fabric. That odor is off-gassing, and it fades but takes weeks.

Get the size right

Most curtains and liners are 72″ wide by 72″ tall—the default for a standard tub. But size is where people get burned, so measure before you buy.

• Standard tub: 72″ × 72″ is the go-to.
• Stall / small shower: look for 54″ × 78″ so it doesn’t bunch.
• Walk-in or clawfoot: extra-wide (100″+) or wrap-around; measure your rod length.
• Tall or raised rod: 72″ × 84″ or 96″ so the hem still reaches inside the tub.

The golden rule: the liner should end an inch or two inside the tub lip, never pooling on the bathroom floor and never hanging so short that water sneaks under it. If your rod sits high, buy a longer curtain rather than a taller-hung short one. Getting the rod hardware mounted at the right height matters as much as the curtain length.

Hooks, rings, and the little stuff

The hardware you hang it on is a genuine quality-of-life upgrade. Cheap plastic rings snag and snap; roller-ball or glide hooks (brands like InterDesign and Zenna Home make good ones) slide silently and let you whip the curtain open one-handed. Match the metal finish to your other bath accessories—towel bars, the ring, the tissue holder—so the room reads as one set.

A few finishing touches make a curtain work harder: a curtain with a built-in weighted or magnetized hem stays put and fights the billowing “shower hug.” If your setup allows, a curved tension or fixed rod adds elbow room. And if the goal is a full waterproof upgrade around the tub, look at a tub & shower surround rather than relying on the curtain alone.

Keeping mildew off it

Every shower curtain loses to mildew eventually—the trick is slowing it down. Spread the curtain fully closed after each shower so it dries instead of trapping moisture in folds. Toss a washable liner in the machine every few weeks with your towels (a couple of towels in the load scrub it clean). Running the bathroom’s exhaust fan for 15 minutes after a shower does more than any coating; if your bathroom has no fan or a weak one, that’s worth fixing at the source. When a liner starts to cloud and stain past washing, it’s a five-dollar replacement—don’t nurse a dead one.

Pick by bathroom

Frequently asked questions

A good curtain-and-liner combo is one of the highest-value upgrades in the whole bathroom, and it’s the kind of thing your local independent hardware store can size and match in five minutes. Not sure which liner or rod fits your tub? Ask us here—we’ll help you get it right.