Best Grout Cleaners

This product stands out for being pretty effective, easy to use, and not overly smelly. After rinsing off the cleaner, Nahrae Tinney, a CR product marketing manager, said her grout was significantly lighter in color than when she used some of the other products. 

Aileen McCluskey, a content production coordinator at CR, said: “I thought it did a pretty good job of cleaning the grout. I sprayed it on, left it for about 2 minutes, [and] I did minimal scrubbing.”

The Grout & Tile Cleaner is easy to apply with a spray and has a foamy texture. “I liked that I could see where I sprayed the foam, and that it stayed put,” said Mary Beth Quirk, CR’s shopping managing editor. Rinsing or wiping off the product requires a little more work because of its foamy, sudsy nature, but not so much that it turned people off from using it.

One of its biggest draws was its scent. Quirk described it as fresh, clean, and reminiscent of cucumbers. All of the evaluators found the smell to be on the lighter side, especially compared with the other products. 

According to the manufacturer, the product can be safely used on grout, ceramic, porcelain, and granite, but it shouldn’t be used on limestone and unsealed stone. The product has a Safer Choice label from the EPA.

If you want a product that’s a one-two punch to clean both your grout and your tiles, this is the one. “The grout was noticeably cleaner, as [was] the tile,” McCluskey said. “I may keep this in my cleaning rotation.”

Because the cleaner is very liquid, it’s better suited for cleaning floor grout rather than grout on walls or any sloped surface. When I was using it on the grout in my bathroom, a lot of it immediately dripped down the walls. And because it looks like water, it’s tough to see where it’s gone and where else you may need to apply it, Quirk pointed out.

One of the best things about the cleaner is the spout on the bottle, which is designed to make it easy to apply the product. It’s also very easy to rinse off because it’s not sticky, gooey, or thick. 

Its smell, however, was definitely strong. “[It’s] not terrible, kind of minty, but [I] didn’t love it,” McCluskey said.

Quirk said, “You can definitely smell it, and it reminds me more of what you’d smell at a school, cafeteria, or public space that’s just been cleaned.”

This cleaner is for ceramic, porcelain tiles, and grout only. It shouldn’t be used on natural stone, such as marble, granite, or travertine. And it also doesn’t work on epoxy grout. Because of its strength, the manufacturer says it will probably remove the sealer on your grout, so you should reseal your grout afterward. According to the manufacturer, however, your sealer was probably already gone before you used this cleaner, and that’s why it was dirty to begin with.

If you have an aversion to the smell of bleach, this one isn’t for you. But if you don’t mind the smell, the Clorox Plus Tilex Mold & Mildew Remover is an effective cleaner that doesn’t require scrubbing if you want to forgo that process.

“I used it in the worst part of the shower, behind the showerhead, where I have a lot of the orangey-pink staining from hard water,” McCluskey said. “The tile and grout were noticeably cleaner.”

The label instructions are clear, but the print is denser than on some of the other products and less legible to read because of its design. “The print is dark blue, and it’s on a royal blue background, so I had to take a photo of the instructions and then zoom in on my phone,” Quirk said.

As far as usage, it’s pretty easy. You can just let the product sit on the grout for a few minutes and then rinse it off without needing to scrub, according to the manufacturer. It’s also not too difficult to rinse off, although Karen LaCasa, a senior client system analyst at CR, said it had a slimy feeling to it and took more than a couple of rinses to make sure it was completely gone.

It does have a pretty strong odor. “My bathroom doesn’t have a window, only a vent, so I would not use this for extended periods of time, since the smell can be overwhelming,” LaCasa said.

Because it contains bleach, you should never use or mix this product with toilet bowl cleaners, rust removers, acids, or any products containing ammonia because it will create hazardous gases.

For one of our evaluators, even using ammonia the week before she tested out the Clorox Plus Tilex Mold & Mildew Remover made her nervous. “Personally, I was more intimidated to use it since it contains bleach and I use ammonia-based disinfectants in the bathroom,” Tinney says. 

But it’s safe to use on most bathroom surfaces, including grout, glazed ceramic tile, tubs, fiberglass, glass shower doors, vinyl curtains, counters, sinks, and no-wax floors, according to the manufacturer. Try to avoid any prolonged contact with metal and old porcelain because it can react with those materials. And don’t use it on wood or painted surfaces unless you’re going to refinish or repaint them afterward.

This came as a recommendation from one of our Instagram followers in a Threads poll created by CR’s social media program manager, Alexis Priester. Some evaluators found the cleaner to be decent at handling grout. For LaCasa, it was effective at removing surface dirt. And for McCluskey, it wasn’t just her tiles and grout that benefited from her using the product. Even areas in her tub where the cleaner had dripped from the walls were visibly much cleaner afterward.

But for some evaluators, it didn’t perform as well as some of the other products. “[It] didn’t even clean the tile, much less the grout,” Tinney said. No dirt came out from her scrubbing, and the grout wasn’t lighter in color after she had used the cleaner. For Quirk, the cleaner didn’t get the grout as clean as the Goo Gone Grout & Tile Cleaner and the Clean-eez Grout-eez.

It is, however, easy to use and rinse off. “I liked that it was green, so it was really easy to see where I had sprayed it to make sure I covered the whole area,” McClusky said. You can spray the concentrated formula on surfaces you want to clean, but if you want to dilute it, you’ll need to pour water and the cleaner into a separate spray bottle. 

It has a very light smell that seemed a bit minty to me. The manufacturer claims it’s an all-purpose cleaner that’s nonabrasive, nonflammable, noncaustic, and phosphate-free. Like the Goo Gone Grout & Tile Cleaner, it also has a Safer Choice label from the EPA. Of the seven products we evaluated, they’re the only two that carry this label.

The cleaner is designed to remove dirt, grease, and stains, and can be used on counters, carpets, floors, fabric, equipment, and vehicles, according to the manufacturer. The company recommends that you dilute the product for daily cleaning and use it in its concentrated form for deep cleans. And you shouldn’t use it on suede, leather, unfinished wood, opals, or pearls.

While it may not be as powerful as some of the other cleaners, this one is still a favorite of two of our evaluators. What won McCluskey over was that it was easy to use and had very little odor. 

For LaCasa, it was its versatility as a multipurpose cleaner and the sense of safety she felt using it. “This is something I would buy in real life despite needing a fair amount of elbow grease since it doesn’t contain bleach, and I have pets,” she said.

According to the manufacturer, the product is ideal for tackling dirt, grease, oil, and grime. But as the company explains, it doesn’t remove water spots or calcium because it’s nonacidic. And it also won’t whiten grout that’s discolored by age or clean up mold, because it’s not a bleaching agent.

Its cleaning performance was mixed among the evaluators. I found it to be impressive at removing the layer of dark smudge that had collected on my wall grout. Its efficacy was also immediate to Quirk. “It only had to sit for 3 minutes and perhaps 15 seconds of scrubbing with a brush before I started to see results,” she said.

But for others, the difference wasn’t as apparent. For McCluskey, who, similar to Quirk, left the cleaner on for 3 minutes and then scrubbed with a brush, the difference the Black Diamond Ultimate Grout Cleaner made felt minimal. For Tinney, the cleaner seemed moderately effective, but it released less dirt and didn’t get the grout as light in color as some of the other cleaners.

On the plus side, it’s very easy to spray on and rinse off. It also creates a foam when you agitate it, which makes it easier to see where the cleaner has been applied. It has a chemical smell, but it isn’t as strong as some of the others, such as the Clean-eez Grout-eez.

According to the manufacturer, you can use this cleaner on white or colored grout. It’s also safe to use on natural stone surfaces, unlike, for instance, the Grout-eez, which is only for grout and ceramic and porcelain tiles.

Some of the evaluators found the performance of this product to be strong. When I used it on my floor grout, the before-and-after difference was one of the most apparent of the products I’ve tried. 

“This was extremely powerful and restored my grout closest to its original light-gray color,” Tinney said. “It was easy to use and rinse off, and pulled up lots of dirt even before I started scrubbing.”

For some, the product was merely fair. “Was it cleaner than before? Objectively, yes. But not by leaps and bounds over anything else,” Quirk said. “It did just okay,” McCluskey said. “[And it] took a decent amount of elbow grease.”

Its performance notwithstanding, the Zep Grout Cleaner & Brightener was one of the products that had me and the evaluators most nervous while using it. It’s a pro-strength acidic formula, and the instructions on the bottle warn that people with existing respiratory problems such as asthma and emphysema shouldn’t use it.

According to the instructions, the cleaner should only be used for white or colored grout lines on tile floors. It shouldn’t be used on marble, terrazzo, travertine, natural stone, chrome, stainless steel, brass, or Corian because those surfaces are susceptible to damage.

The instructions also warn against having the cleaner splash on nearby surfaces. To avoid this, Zep recommends that you protect the tiles or baseboards around the grout with painter’s tape, or you can pour a small amount of the product into a cup and apply it to the grout with a small brush or cotton swab. This is among the many other important instructions given on the label.

You can scrub with a soft scrub brush or toothbrush, but the manufacturer suggests on the product’s website that you throw out these tools after you’re done cleaning. 

All in all, the process can feel daunting. “All of the label warnings really scared me off,” McCluskey said. “I did the smallest amount of grout because I was worried about hitting tile, as it can damage the tile.”  

“[It’s] pretty intimidating to use, and I’d stick with less powerful products for peace of mind as I have two young kids,” Tinney said. She also pointed out that when she tried to protect her tiles with painter’s tape, as the manufacturer suggested, it wasn’t totally effective because the cleaner leaked underneath the tape.

The chemical smell of this is also pretty strong, and for the evaluators, the product’s efficacy often didn’t outweigh the trepidation while using it. If you’re looking to deep-clean your tile grout, this might be worth considering, but just know that using this product requires exercising a fair amount of caution.

We’ve tried out The Pink Stuff on pots before, but how well did it do at cleaning grout?

Its cleaning performance is adequate. When I used it on the grout on my wall tiles, the grout wasn’t necessarily sparkly white afterward, but the cleaner definitely got rid of the pink and brown grime on the surface. McCluskey thought The Pink Stuff was effective, but she didn’t see it cleaning that much better than other products out there.

Unlike all of the other cleaners we tried, The Pink Stuff is a paste. If you’re looking to clean the grout on your walls, it’s a good choice because the product sticks to the surface and remains there, compared with liquid cleaners, which run down immediately once you apply them on walls and make you feel like you’re losing a lot of product. 

On the other hand, because it’s a paste, our evaluators found it slightly harder to rinse off. Cleaning with it is also a bit of a process because you’re supposed to rub the product gently after you’ve applied it to the surface and make sure the product doesn’t dry up. “It definitely took a lot of elbow grease, and you need to be present for the entire process. You don’t just put it on and let it sit,” McCluskey said.

It’s also probably more suited for smaller areas of cleaning. “I could see it getting pretty messy if you were cleaning a larger area, however, and needing to spread paste all over a floor could waste a lot of product,” Quirk said.

The scent of The Pink Stuff isn’t strong. In fact, I found it to be lightly fruity and actually kind of pleasant. But while the product itself is described by the manufacturer as a mildly abrasive cleaner, two evaluators found its abrasiveness to be more than mild. Tinney says her gloves were damaged after using The Pink Stuff, and the soft cloth she used developed several holes in the process. 

For LaCasa, the first time she used The Pink Stuff in a very small area on her wall tile, the cleaner lightened the color of her grout without incident. But when she tried it a second time on a larger area of four tiles, some of her grout came off in flakes, even though both times she had been diligent about getting the paste off right away and not letting it dry.

With The Pink Stuff, the manufacturer recommends that you use it with a soft cloth or sponge, being careful not to apply too much pressure on the surface you’re cleaning because that could scratch it. You should also be careful using it on glass, highly polished steel surfaces, and ceramic hobs.